Fair Employment

• Only 23% of people in Kenya, Zambia and Ghana are in salaried employment
• 55% of our stitchers have never been in formal employment before
• Our stitchers support an average of six dependents with their salary

Alive & Kicking stitchers live in areas of extremely high urban unemployment, where earning a decent living is a real challenge. We enable over 120 adults to work their own way out of poverty, earning a fair wage in good conditions.

The regularity and security of an Alive & Kicking salary allows our employees to gain control over their lives and plan for the future. Often receiving the only income in their households, our stitchers bear a great responsibility for the care of their extended family. The work provided by Alive & Kicking directly supports a community of over 800.

It is not only through a regular and fair wage that we help our employees and their communities. They also benefit from work place health and wellness advice sessions, designed to encourage good health practices and to remove stigma about disease. A number of stitchers have been trained as HIV educators, enhancing their skill sets and allowing them to give key lessons to children when balls are donated.

We are also proud of our record of investing in our staff and promoting from within – employees have the opportunity to work their way up in our structure of stitcher trainers and supervisors.

In 2010 Alive & Kicking created an employment charter in order to formalise our approach to employment standards for our employees and to clearly lay out the underlying social principles behind our local labour policies. Read the charter here