The BOMA Story

BOMA founder Kathleen Colson with REAP participants in Manyatta Lengima village.

The BOMA Project is led by founder and CEO Kathleen Colson and Ahmed “Kura” Omar, our operations director in Kenya.

BOMA’s programs are driven by our mission: to improve the ability of women to earn their own income. We give the “poorest of the poor” access to the resources they need to improve their own lives and conditions in their communities, within the context of their own rich traditions and heritage. The Rural Entrepreneur Access Project (REAP) is the cornerstone of that effort. REAP is a grants-based program that offers business skills and savings training, as well as sustained mentoring, by respected local leaders. It has proven to be a cost-effective and sustainable strategy for poverty alleviation in the arid and semi-arid lands of Northern Kenya.

Nkilayon Logol and Hidado Khuyan in a covered market in Loglogo.

Kathleen has been organizing and leading safaris to Kenya for more than 25 years, as well as working and fundraising on behalf of numerous conservation and humanitarian causes in Africa. In 2005, she founded The BOMA Project with the goal of creating an efficient and responsive nonprofit organization that relies on small-scale, grassroots economic-empowerment initiatives. We support local participants, local leaders and locally led solutions to modern challenges.

The word “boma” is Swahili for a livestock enclosure, stockade or fortified village. The word has deep roots in the languages of Eastern Africa, often connoting a safe or protected place. It also means “to fortify.”