Seven Organisations. Two People You Can Call.
Shirikiana is a consortium of seven organisations, run day to day by two people. Every partner is named on this page, with someone you can contact — alongside a wider network of associates active across Kenya and the wider Africa region. We’re early-stage by design, not by accident: we’d rather be honest about where we are than claim a scale we haven’t earned yet.
A backbone organisation, not a parallel one
Shirikiana operates as a backbone organisation. We do not duplicate what already exists; we strengthen it and supply what is missing — concept, partners, funding and coordination.
Delivery remains with the institutions already active in each field. A partner school teaches. A cooperative trades. A church convenes its community. A university researches. Shirikiana designs the architecture that lets them act together, secures the resources, and holds the structure steady over time.
This is a deliberate choice rather than a limitation of scale. Parallel structures compete with the institutions they claim to serve, and they disappear when their funding does. A backbone organisation leaves capacity behind in the institutions themselves. Credit is shared as a matter of principle, and every partner is named.
Amb. Bramwel W. Kisuya
Author of The Power of Values-Based Cooperatives for Workers. Former Kenyan Ambassador to Spain and Permanent Representative to the UN World Tourism Organization (2011–2018). MA in Rural Economics and Extension Education (Gandhigram Rural University, India); BA in Community Development and Extension (Agra University, India), specialising in Cooperatives. Former Lecturer of Cooperative Philosophy at the Cooperative College of Kenya. Led the first official visit to the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in 2011, producing a Memorandum of Understanding between the Cooperative College of Kenya and Mondragon University.
Three decades of hands-on cooperative development work across Africa: as Education and Training Officer of the Apex union of Savings and Credit Cooperatives, designed and led the 1996 rollout of Front Office Services across 35 SACCOs — the initiative behind Kenya’s now 200+ Deposit Taking SACCOs. Delivered IFAD-funded training, feasibility studies and strategic planning for cooperative and rural development programmes in Kenya, Ethiopia, Lesotho and Uganda, including institutional capacity assessment for the Housing Finance Bank of Uganda’s incremental housing finance products (2022) and a six-month training consultancy for Ethiopia’s Federal Cooperative Agency. Long-standing proposal-development and fundraising track record, including securing KES 14.3 million from the Community Development Trust Fund for the Bunyala Fishermen Cooperative Society.
Martin Hoffmann
Award-winning film editor, producer, and cinematographer with more than 25 years of professional experience in production, cinematography, editing, colour grading, and VFX. Recipient of the Deutscher Filmpreis (German Film Award) for Best Editing on Rhythm Is It (2005), among further honours including the Bayrischer Filmpreis, Franz Hofer Preis, Preis der Deutschen Kino Gilde, Kritikerpreis, Gilde Filmpreis, and official selections at the International Valladolid Film Festival, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Diagonale, and Achtung Berlin. Editor on Human Flow and Trip to Asia, among numerous further cinema documentaries, feature films, and TV productions.
Trained in marketing and in applied AI, with practical expertise in public relations and social media communication built through marketing his own productions, and technical fluency spanning DaVinci Resolve, the Adobe Creative Cloud suite, HTML, and WordPress. Leads project development, university partnerships, and the practical/training side of Shirikiana’s work.
Vision, Mission and Goal
A competitive cooperative sector accounting for 70 percent of jobs created annually in developing countries — by 2063, in line with the African Union’s Agenda 2063 timeline.
To employ innovative partnerships for productive cooperative investments, capacity building and sustainable jobs for youths.
To attract young people into target value chains as member-owners, leaders, managers, and promoters of cooperative investments. Through integrated capacity building and institutional partnerships, Shirikiana uses the consortium approach to provide technical support to cooperatives and related sectors.
Why working as one is necessary
The consortium approach becomes necessary for the cooperative sector to optimise the utilisation of resources, institutions, and human capacity to create jobs. The problem is no longer the absence of technology, human and material resources, but the lack of effective coordination, integration, and execution of capacity building initiatives across institutions — as evident in the low value-adding activities by producer and marketing cooperatives, weak aggregation systems, limited industrial-scale value addition in rural areas, low industrial and export market participation, low job creation and the resultant weak rural economies. On the other hand, diaspora remittances are high, but little is channelled into productive investment, while cooperative loans often support more consumption than enterprise development. Consequently, value chain integration remains weak and fragmented.
A “working as one” model, where expertise, finance, technology, and governance are integrated into a single structured delivery framework for creating jobs, is the ideal consortium approach that brings together all key actors into a single coordinated system of action. It ensures shared planning and implementation, shared monitoring and accountability, and shared innovation systems — involving the Cooperative Experts Forum and allied professional institutions in agronomy, veterinary, geological, electro-mechanical, GIS, architectural and risk management systems; digital systems, AI tools and TVETs; and cooperatives, relevant county governments, and national policy and resource coordination agencies.
Advantages of the approach
Minimal resistance to the modernisation of cooperatives to adapt to the global cooperative model; exposure to competitive international cooperative systems; strengthening linkages between production, processing and markets; restoring institutional memory; integrating multidisciplinary expertise; and enabling the structuring, testing, adapting and scaling of innovation, while improving youth leadership transition towards enhanced efficiency and reduced duplication.
Key outcomes
Increased cooperative productivity and competitiveness; strengthened value addition and industrial linkages; improved rural employment creation; enhanced absorption of diaspora remittances into productive investments; strengthened governance and institutional performance; and sustainable youth-led cooperative enterprises.
The grounding behind our work
The denser, more academic grounding from the handbooks — for readers who want the full picture.
“Arise and shine, for your light has come.” — Isaiah 60:1
The Central Teaching
True sustainability is created when theory, practical action, and ethical values work together. The workshops and handbooks we design connect practical skills, real-world application, and ethical responsibility — so participants build opportunity for themselves and contribute to their communities.
The Mondragon Model
Don José María Arizmendiarrieta guided polytechnic students to restore their dignity by forming a consumer cooperative store. It grew and diversified into today’s Mondragon Cooperative Corporation — 81 different types of cooperatives, its own university and 12 research and development centres, around 70,000 employees across 37 countries, 104 production plants, and products and services sold in 150 countries. A primary inspiration, and a model we are building toward, not a claim about where we are today.
The Consortium Approach
For cooperatives to reclaim their position in creating jobs, a transformative approach to building capacity is necessary: production and productivity, jobs across value chains, value addition and industrial development, financial inclusion and investment mobilisation, and technology, innovation and digital transformation.
Knowledge Alone Is Not Enough
True sustainability is created when theory, practical action, and ethical values work together. For this reason, the workshops and handbooks we design aim to connect three things: practical skills, real-world application, and ethical responsibility. Participants are encouraged not only to develop economic opportunities for themselves, but also to become responsible contributors to their communities.
Knowledge
Understanding business, technology, cooperation, and economic systems.
Action
Applying theory immediately through practical business activities across a range of value chains and real implementation.
Values
Building entrepreneurship on honesty, responsibility, solidarity, and ethical leadership.
“Two are better than one… though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” — Ecclesiastes 4:9–12
Youth in Cooperatives
The number of youths entering the job market increasingly outpaces job creation. Inclusion of young men and women in cooperative business development as active members, directors, and staff sustains cooperatives as creators of jobs and other opportunities.
Why Cooperation Is the Solution
The handbook illustrates the Biblical view that people can improve their capacity through collective effort and participation in cooperatives across agriculture, industry, mining, construction, energy, transport, consumer, and housing sectors. It explains how cooperatives are organised based on principles and values of cooperation, and the roles of members, management committees, and staff.
Non-negotiable, not just marketing language
Shared Recognition
Everyone who partners with or funds us is credited prominently and by name — cooperatives, TVETs, funders, government partners, university professors, and founding organisations alike. We don’t believe in invisible backers.
We Never Compete With Our Own People
A freelancer trained through our programmes keeps their client relationship for good. We support, we never take over. Work a freelancer can’t handle alone is passed to someone else in the network — never absorbed by Shirikiana itself.
A Christian, Values-Based Ethic
Rooted in the biblical view that people can improve their capacity through collective effort — “Arise and Shine” (Isaiah 60:1) — and reflected throughout our founding handbook, The Power of Values-Based Cooperatives for Workers.
Honesty Over Hype
We separate what we can prove today from where we’re headed, and we label the difference clearly across this site. We’d rather under-promise than borrow credibility we haven’t earned.
Partner Organisations
Shirikiana is a consortium. The partner firms bring expertise in cooperative development, AI, animation, finance and fiscal policy, engineering, education and training, publicity, film and media production, information technology and digitisation, climate science applications, and development project consulting.
Delroca Springs Ltd
A founding member of the Shirikiana consortium and the rights holder of the two foundational handbooks on cooperatives, The Power of Values-Based Cooperatives for Workers and Youth Inclusion Strategies for Cooperatives. Expert in materials development for distance learning, Delroca Springs complements available learning materials with support resources such as podcast and blogging in collaboration with consortium members, to mainstream cooperatives as primary sources of employment targeting youths, existing members, boards of directors, staff and equity investors across sectors — primarily livestock products, textiles and apparel, mining, health facilities, arts and crafts, education, training, research and engineering technologies including SCADA for universities and TVET institutes.
Missing Linkk
Missing Linkk, led by Martin Hoffmann, serves as the central media, communications and funding partner for the consortium. The company offers a blend of creative and structural services, specialising in high-quality film and video production alongside targeted social media marketing. Beyond that creative expertise, Missing Linkk provides structural support through strategic funding and financing, as well as business process automation to optimise internal workflows. By integrating these disciplines, Missing Linkk takes charge of the consortium’s media, publicity and campaign work — so that what the consortium does is seen, funded and understood.
Innovex Associates Ltd
A regional consulting services firm with over 20 years of experience. Services include digital systems and platforms development; project assurance and quality assurance for enterprise application systems and ERP; monitoring and evaluation; development project consulting; climate information product development for diverse sectors; business and enterprise development; procurement management; risk management; and ISO-based ICT management systems. Assignments have been carried out at national and regional level, mainly in eastern and southern Africa and the Great Lakes region.
Royal Automation System Ltd
A Kenyan engineering and industrial automation company established in 2013, providing technology-driven solutions for industrial and infrastructure sectors, guided by the values of integrity, safety, quality and performance. Headquartered in Nairobi, it specialises in industrial automation, electrical and mechanical engineering, instrumentation and control systems, civil engineering works, IT solutions, procurement, consultancy and project management. Certified by Kenya’s National Construction Authority for electrical, mechanical, roads and building engineering works, and licensed by the Communications Authority of Kenya for telecommunications service provision. Projects delivered for Kenya Pipeline Company, Bamburi Cement, Kenya Petroleum Refineries, CITAM Church and other major industrial clients. Expertise includes PLC and DCS systems, process automation, instrumentation, CCTV and access control, power distribution, generators, and industrial maintenance.
AIDAL Ltd
Project development, digital mapping, and strategic planning advisory across East Africa.
Christian Care International Church
Faith and community partner, anchoring our church and CBO work.
Oliver Elias
Oliver Elias runs a media consultancy and supports the consortium on financing, working from Germany and Dubai. He is the consortium’s route to funders outside East Africa.
Shirikiana —> to work with one another. The founding values of the cooperative movement, self-help, self-responsibility and solidarity, remain the most practical basis for collective enterprise. We join knowledge, applied action and ethical responsibility in member-owned, member-governed enterprise, guided by the International Cooperative Alliance’s principle of concern for community. We proceed incrementally, attribute every partner by name, and distinguish demonstrated capacity from stated intent.