Business
Halisi Africa Discoveries
A women-led travel company connecting travellers with community-owned experiences, local enterprises and restoration initiatives across Kenya.
The heart of it
Tourism is the tool, not the end goal. Halisi Africa Discoveries connects women’s existing knowledge and enterprise with the markets, resources and opportunities that can strengthen livelihoods, agency and community-led conservation.
The impact, in short
Community
21 women
Bidii na Kazi Women Group is developing visitor experiences around Swahili and Giriama food, heritage, storytelling and conservation.
Economic
Market Access
Halisi connects women who already have valuable skills and enterprises with travellers, tourism businesses and potential buyers.
Environment
Travel-linked restoration
Coastal experiences are being developed to connect responsible travel with locally led mangrove restoration.
Resilience
Beyond the sale
Halisi is exploring savings groups, financial literacy and enterprise support to help tourism income contribute to longer-term economic resilience.
What it is
Halisi Africa Discoveries starts from a simple premise: economic opportunity means little without the rights, voice and systems that allow women to benefit from it.
Across Kenya, women are already weaving, cooking, farming, guiding, preserving cultural knowledge and contributing to conservation. The problem is often not a lack of skill. It is what surrounds that skill: reliable markets, financial systems, visibility, enterprise support and access to buyers.
Halisi uses tourism to help close that gap, connecting travellers, delegations and tourism businesses with women-led and community-owned experiences.
Its approach begins before the visitor arrives, with work around rights, leadership, financial literacy and enterprise development. Tourism then becomes one route to market, and one way for communities to retain more value from the knowledge and experiences they already hold.
“Women’s empowerment starts with rights. Before we ask women to participate in tourism or earn an income, we need to create space for them to understand their rights, find their voice, make decisions and have greater control over the resources that shape their lives.”
The craft & its context
Halisi works with women preserving and sharing Swahili and Giriama food traditions, community storytelling and heritage, alongside crafts such as Turkana basket weaving: connecting cultural knowledge with markets that can help sustain it.
The Missing Bridge
In Eliye Springs, Halisi met Ewaton, a skilled basket maker whose experience exposed a recurring gap: having something valuable to sell does not mean having reliable access to buyers.
When Ewaton cannot sell her baskets, she sometimes relies on wild palm fruit for food. For Halisi, market access is therefore part of empowerment itself. The work is not simply about training women to produce more. It is about connecting existing skills with travellers, hotels, tourism companies and other buyers who can create sustained demand.
Restoration as Stewardship
Along Kenya’s coast, Halisi is developing travel experiences that connect tourism with locally led mangrove restoration.
The mangroves are not simply scenery for visitors. They are part of the ecological and economic life of coastal communities. Halisi wants travellers to contribute to restoration while understanding who is doing the work, where it is happening and what their contribution supports.
The model is still being developed, including systems to document participating groups, restoration sites and activity. The intention is broader than a carbon-offset transaction: travel becomes one way to support restoration that is locally led and rooted in long-term stewardship.
Beyond the Sale
A good tourism month does not necessarily create financial security. Halisi is increasingly looking at what happens between sales: when there are no visitors, when materials need to be purchased or when a woman needs access to a small amount of capital. One area it hopes to strengthen is Village Savings and Loan Associations, sometimes known locally as table banking. Women save together, build a shared fund and can access small loans while developing stronger financial management systems.
The idea is to make tourism income more durable. Tourism can help create the market; community-based financial systems can help women retain and build on what they earn.
The people behind the project
Evalyne Njoki Maina
Founder of Halisi Africa Discoveries · Kenya
Through Halisi Africa Discoveries, Evalyne works with women and community enterprises across Kenya whose skills, knowledge and cultural traditions already carry value.
Her story
Through Halisi Africa Discoveries, Evalyne works with women and community enterprises across Kenya that already hold valuable skills, knowledge and cultural traditions. Her focus is on what often stands between those assets and sustainable livelihoods: market access, financial systems, visibility and economic agency.
What she's building toward
A stronger network of women-led community tourism enterprises across Kenya that travellers can find, visit and support directly.
Follow the thread
Across places and generations, women and their work are connected — through craft, tradition, community and shared experience. Sistra follows those threads.
