When a woman is given the tools and space to build, she does not just construct a business, she builds a foundation that lifts an entire community.

In Kendu Bay, Kenya, the early morning air is shifting. The dense, irritating smoke that once choked local kitchens, leaving families coughing and stinging from the fumes, is being replaced by the efficient, clean heat of specialized, energy-saving jikos (cookstoves).  Behind this quite revolution is Elvin Saline, a young, passionate lady who pours her entire heart into everything she does. Armed with a diploma in civil engineering, Elvin is in a mission to completely shatter the long-standing belief that women cannot thrive in heavy, technical fields, all while saving her community from severe daily hardships.

Her journey from a frustrated, idle graduate to an active community entrepreneur is a powerful masterclass in resilience.

The story began with a period of painful stagnation. After completing a grueling schoolwork and proudly earning her diploma in civil engineering, Elvin found herself caught in a trap familiar to many young Africans graduates, she was staying at home for a while, doing nothing productive after school.

But instead of letting despair settle in, Elvin began to observe her surroundings with the skills she has on engineering. She looked closely at the challenges plaguing her neighborhood and the community at large. Every single day, families were draining the little resource to purchase expensive firewood. Even worse, young children were forced into hard labor, spending hours daily collecting firewood. This exhausting task stole their childhood and robbed them of the precious time they desperately needed to work on their schoolwork.

In April 2026, Elvin attended a transformative training organized by Agri Pro Solutions Agroecological Service Providers Hub in partnership with the TAGDev 2.0 Programme, University of Eldoret. The training equipped her with entrepreneurship and business development skills, helping her identify opportunities within her community.

Inspired by what she learned, she combined her engineering background with practical enterprise knowledge and launched a business constructing energy-efficient, enclosed jikos. Using locally available materials such as bricks, sand, cement, and red oxide, she began building durable stoves designed to serve households for many years.

“I just wanted to break the belief that there is some extent women can't go, or some things they can't do,” Elvin says, her voice ringing with conviction. “We are capable.”

Elvin’s engineered jikos are not just stoves; they are highly efficient economic assets meticulously designed to tackle poverty and danger simultaneously. They aid in massive resource savings, they require limited or few pieces of firewood to generate immense heat. It comes hand in hand in restoring childhood by allowing children to reclaim their time and focus entirely on their schoolwork. To eliminate kitchen hazards, Elvin’s clever design addresses this head-on by creating a completely enclosed structure. The only exposed opening is a dedicated space perfectly fitted to place a pot or sufuria. By trapping the fire, the jiko completely eliminates common kitchen accidents, such as being severely burnt by stray embers or tripping over shifting firewood and causing personal or structural damage.

Stepping into a heavily male-dominated construction field meant Elvin had to build a thick skin. In the beginning, the community did not cheer her on; instead, they met her with harsh criticism, and negative judgment. People openly doubted that a young woman could handle the physical and technical demands of masonry.             
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“Since the community members are not used to seeing women engaged in that area of 
work, it has been difficult and challenging to market my work, services, and gain trust from potential customers,” Elvin reflects openly.

The absolute turning point came when she finally secured her very first customer. Knowing that the stakes were incredibly high, Elvin poured her engineering precision into that first build. The flawless completion of that single stove transformed it from a household appliance into an undeniable, living moment of her talent. 

“The first customer that gave me the opportunity was a major breakthrough because their completed stoves or jikos provided evidence of my skills and helped me build credibility,” Elvin explains. “I now use these examples to demonstrate my ability to deliver quality work. As women in this field, we have to consistently produce high quality work to challenge existing perceptions and prove we are equally capable.”

​To break down financial barriers and make her innovation accessible to even the poorest families, Elvin designed a highly flexible, practical business model. If a farmer or customer has their own construction materials readily available, Elvin gladly maneuvers around the financial constraints by asking for labor payment only. This keeps her overhead low and her operations lightning-fast, she simply shows up to the site carrying her trowel, brush, and steel, ready to work. Through this sheer grit and commercial agility, she has already successfully constructed 8 jikos so far, worth KES 28,000, and currently has 4 bookings yet to be completed.

​True project success is measured by sustainability and its power to uplift others. Building these jikos has completely transformed Elvin’s own livelihood. Instead of relying on a single stream of income, she strategically reinvested the money earned from her masonry work and savings to buy 300 chickens, launching a thriving poultry enterprise. This brilliant economic buffering keeps her highly productive and financially secure even during the brief windows when she is waiting for more construction bookings to roll in. From this she hopes to sell the chicken on maturity @ Ksh 1000. Her life is night-and-day compared to those empty days after graduation when she had nothing productive to do.

But Elvin refused to be the only success story in Kendu Bay. Recognizing that true empowerment means pulling others up, she has actively trained and mentored 2 other young ladies in her locality in the tricky art of jiko building. Today, those very ladies are running their own builds, performing exceptionally well, making cooking an enjoyable and effective experience across Kenyan households, and driving massive positive impact throughout the community.

​Despite the heavy challenges, the initial isolation, and the biting criticism of the traditionalists, Elvin displays pure joy and fulfillment regarding what she does. She has absolutely no plans to stop. Instead, she is sharpening her skills to become even more consistent and perfect, with immediate plans to formally register her enterprise on the market for future massive expansion. Her ultimate goal is to completely flip the societal narrative on its head and recruit as many women as possible into this field of work, shifting the focus away from initial struggles and highlighting the profound strength built along the way.  
 “Women or girls given a good and Conducive environment they can't just build but implement great ideas and create opportunities for tomorrow's generation with no fear of critics,” Elvin says proudly, standing tall against negative feedback. “Worrying about judgement is a natural human desire for acceptance but that should not stop them from making a greater step.”

Elvin Saline’s journey exemplifies the vision of the TAGDev 2.0 Programme: empowering young people, particularly women, to become job creators, innovators, and agents of positive change within their communities. Through determination, technical expertise, and entrepreneurial spirit, she is not only transforming kitchens in Kendu Bay but also inspiring a new generation of women to build their own futures.