Pillar 01
Livelihoods
Salons, barbershops, tailoring and food vending — refugee-run businesses that share work instead of waiting for it.
- Start-up kits for youth
- Individual & group enterprise
- Job & income-sharing networks
Refugee-led · Est. 2013 · Nairobi, Kenya
Refugees helping refugees continue the lives they came here to protect.
THE FACE SELF-HELP ASSOCIATION is a community of refugees who chose to stop waiting on handouts and start solving each other's problems — through livelihoods, education, and protection.
Who we are
An association refugees built for themselves, because no one else could reach every case in time.
In 2013, a group of refugees from different nationalities, races, religions and origins — tired of struggling alone to reach service providers — came together to form THE FACE SELF-HELP ASSOCIATION. What started as a small group approaching UNHCR to raise shared concerns has grown into a community-run association working across three pillars.
Pillar 02
Education
Professional and vocational training toward independence, with university support for those who show real potential.
- Skills & college training
- University sponsorship
- School items for children
Pillar 03
Protection & Legal
Proper documentation, referrals on urgent cases, and information so refugees know where to report rights violations.
- Documentation support
- Referrals to stakeholders
- Rights & reporting information
Our story
From one group's frustration in Kayole, to a decade of self-help.
THE FACE SELF-HELP ASSOCIATION began its activities in 2013 among refugees who shared the same struggle: reaching service providers in normal times and in emergencies alike. They organised, approached UNHCR directly, and started equipping youth in Kayole with start-up kits for barbershops, salons and tailoring — long before official registration followed in 2014.
Read the full history
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Activities began
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Certificate registered
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Core pillars
Kayole
Nairobi, Kenya
Partnership highlight
Turning waste paper into wages.
As UNHCR noticed the association's growth, it introduced training, new stakeholder connections, and a defining project: collecting and recycling used paper into a profitable activity. Proceeds have gone toward school items for children, start-up kits for youth, and support for members already running their own activities.
Meet our partners