Naomi Mwaura

Naomi is working toward creating a professional and inclusive public transport industry for all in Kenya. By centering the needs of the most vulnerable groups in transportation design and employment structures, Naomi is expanding economic opportunities for women while also improving the accessibility of the public transportation system to other vulnerable groups such as women, elderly people, people with disabilities, and children.

Given the vital role that public transportation – and specifically the individual-owned matatus – play in economic and social mobility in Kenya, Naomi is working to transform the industry within a generation to make it a safe, efficient preferred mode of transportation for women and other vulnerable groups, as well as a safe, dignified workplace for all Kenyans. Unlike other isolated initiatives in Kenya that address only the symptoms of the problems facing public transport in Kenya (e.g., safety, corruption, accessible roads), Naomi is seeking to change the nature of employment in the industry and permanently raise the quality of the experience for commuters, so that women and other vulnerable groups in Kenya can participate more fully in the economy and society.

Naomi started Flone, named for her parents Florence and Nehemiah, to provide research, training, and advocacy for better public transit after noticing female classmates experiencing harassment at transit stops near their university campus. She uses a combination of advocacy based on data, and research on the public transportation sector, including violence “hot spots”; culturally-adapted education of matatu owners about the untapped market potential of increasing the number of users who are women and members of other vulnerable groups while improving their commuting experience; culturally-targeted education campaigns for drivers and the public (including key influencers of particular tribes); and bystander intervention training to improve the passenger’s commuting experience. Flone also works with government agencies, transportation workers, and unions to improve driver and conductor services, and to increase the number of women who can safely work in the public transportation industry.

Flone created a Women in Transport chapter in Nairobi to build the capacity amongst the women transport workers community to advocate for themselves, which then led to the creation of chapters in the biggest cities in Kenya, as well as abroad to cities like Kampala and Dar Es Salaam. Naomi also created the “Women in Transport Africa Conference”, a unique gathering of transportation industry professionals across Africa that bridges the gap between transportation policy researchers and workers, and urban planning, public safety, and gender-based violence experts.

Flone has changed laws, reformed policies, upgraded certification processes, and is beginning to make its mark across the continent. For the past nine years, they have worked with 3,200 matatu workers, 100+ transport stakeholders (including government agencies and labor unions), 50 different public transport organizations engaged and more than 1300 women professionals to implement interventions. Naomi recently achieved the passage of national legislation that outlawing of a common harassment practice on matatus, punishable now by long prison terms.

Seventy percent of the Kenyan population uses public transport in the form of matatus (privately-owned minibuses) daily. This industry is the largest employer in the ‘informal economy’ with about 350,000 workers comprising drivers, conductors (those who handle the customers), and administrative staff, and gross revenues of USD 4,000,000 per day. The industry also creates indirect jobs for vehicle assemblers, importers, and vehicle maintenance personnel. According to the “Matatu Owners Association”, there are around 80,000 matatus on Kenyan roads. A matatu is a 13-seater minivan which is privately owned. The owner has two employees who operate it (a driver and a ‘conductor’ who sits behind the driver with the passengers) and are required to give USD 50 to the owner at the end of the day. If they make more, they divide it amongst the two of them. If the target is not met, they go home empty handed. The only explicit mandate is to move the vehicle from point A to B, the rest is blurred. As a result, the faster they move the vehicle, the more money the employees will make. There is no training in customer service (or any other) for these two employees who interact with approx.120 people daily.

After Kenyan independence – and again in 2017 – the government tried to create a government-funded public transportation system, but both efforts failed quickly. The network of privately-owned matatus simply provided faster transportation with a broader reach for most Kenyans, and the matatu networks were more ingrained in Kenya’s urban centers. Today, Kenya’s government’s top public transportation priority is building and maintaining roads and hard infrastructure, and they have little resources or attention paid to social issues, like safety and equality of access.

From the commuter’s perspective that uses matatus to access work, school, childcare, or shopping, the industry was designed for the convenience of ‘able-bodied men’ while ignoring the needs of various other users like women, teenage girls, children, elderly, or people with disabilities. First, incidents of sexual harassment (e.g., touching, pinching, taking revealing photos, publicly stripping women of their clothes) and sexual assault against women on matatus are high: 73% of matatu managers and 88% of commuters have experienced or witnessed sexual violence against women or girls on public transport. There also are countless police reports on violence against commuters from other vulnerable groups.

Second, women in Kenya travel differently from men: as primary caretakers, women often must do trip-chaining, carry multiple packages and travel with children or older adults. While women are often reliant on public transportation, they face enormous obstacles in accessing it. Such obstacles include unpredictable routes, being charged extra for large parcels, not feeling safe traveling at night, and having to make multiple trips to fulfill their responsibilities. Barriers to accessing public transportation contribute to maintaining women in poverty and being vulnerable to violence.

From the employee’s perspective of the public transportation system, since colonial times, the industry has been male-dominated, both from an employment point of view and the misogynistic values it embodies; currently, women make up only 7% of the public transportation industry’s labor force in Kenya. Further, since there are no contracts, background checks, qualifications, or training needed to become a matatu operator, there is a cultural belief that working in the industry is for rude and uneducated men. Matatu operators carry a social stigma associated with criminality and recklessness.

The government has largely avoided regulating the matatus. Consequently, the public transport industry has evolved into a chaotic system with a weak framework of written and unwritten rules. These rules are mostly crafted by the same players who are benefitting from them. Therefore, they have no incentives to change the status quo as it provides them with an informal workforce and they pay no taxes, no minimum wages, and provide no paid holidays or any other benefits.

Because of the safety and accessibility challenges of Kenya’s public transportation, many Kenyans purchase individual cars when they can save enough money (rather than spending it on housing or education). This growth in individual passenger cars on the roads in Kenya, and the resulting decrease in riders on public transportation, will exacerbate environmental damage and contribute to climate change.

Naomi’s strategy combines three core elements that create an impact along the entire industry’s value chain: knowledge generation, behavior change and movement building. Over the last decade, Naomi has tested and defined her strategy based on data and research and adapted it to pressing issues in the industry while creating a movement for transport workers, government agencies, and labor unions on how to run a better and more inclusive public transport business.

One of her first strategies was to help people understand that transport problems are systemic and not just the fault of a few bad apples. News stories of tragic accidents often fixate on a reckless driver, just as a woman’s dress is often cited as the reason for her having been assaulted on public transit. To change the narrative, Naomi worked with TV and radio stations that reported only individual case by individual case. She helped them see the full picture of systemic dysfunction and the widespread and serious nature of violence experienced by women on public transportation. Appalled but undeterred, Naomi organized ‘My Dress, My Choice’ protests, which sparked awareness and research on the issue and enabled women to speak publicly about daily experiences using public transport. She brought together county officials, researchers, and commuters to develop a Sexual Harassment and Gender Sex Violence policy for public transport, recently approved at the county level. At the national level, thanks to Flone’s work with legislators, Kenya passed a new law that makes “stripping women in public transport” punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

To enforce regulations about abuse and sexual violence, Flone is leveraging the power of new technologies by developing an online platform and mobile app called ‘Report it Stop it’ for commuters to report any incident they experience and the specific route and rate the security on public transport routes. Flone will open source this data for commuters, city authorities, civil societies, and local governments to gain deeper insights and improve situational awareness of specific issues.

In the past decade, Naomi has bridged the gap between the reality for women matatu passengers and society’s understanding of the problem through data collection and research, all of which is open-source data about the industry and is used for program interventions to help other stakeholders implement 20% of her research recommendations. For this, Naomi came up with an effective recipe to share their industry findings through stakeholders’ forums comprised of professionals, policymakers, public transport users, and researchers.

Flone orchestrates working groups that encompass various aspects such as training, policy, advocacy, and research in different thematic areas. One of the latest studies is on disabilities and elderly mainstreaming, which resulted in a study report titled “Moving Barriers, Increasing Access: An Assessment of the Mobility of Women with Disabilities and elderly women” (2022). Subsequently, in 2023, Flone developed the “Guidebook for Supporting and Interacting with Persons with Disabilities” in partnership with the National Council for Persons with Disabilities. This tool is being used to train public transport operators on how to provide disability-inclusive practices in the Nairobi Metropolitan area. Flone also developed a report on ‘The Accessibility of Public Transport Service in Nairobi Metropolitan Area’, which identifies the current policies and programs promoting accessibility in public transport and the technical, social, and policy gaps that hinder the implementation of policies and programs.

To further address passenger needs and concerns, Flone surveyed Kenyan women’s travel patterns and challenges using the matatu system. The assessment revealed multiple acts of violence against women and girls. Partnering with UN-Habitat, Flone created a toolkit of professional development classes for transport workers, providing minimum standard guidelines and tools to create safer and more accessible systems. Flone uses the toolkit to integrate gender-sensitive policies into the culture of transport organizations. Courses address how to spot and prevent sexual harassment and violence but also emphasize customer service: How to better accommodate female passengers and other vulnerable groups and, in so doing, increase daily revenues.

There is also financial management training and capacity building for public transport operators to improve business systems. By working directly with matatu drivers, conductors, and owners to raise the standard of behavior, Flone is helping them improve the commuters’ experience and showing them how this can, in turn, improve their bottom lines. Naomi is also working with policymakers to incorporate the toolkit into national policy in Kenya and scaling it to Uganda and Tanzania.

Flone works with matatu drivers, conductors, and managers to raise the standard of behavior that directly impacts commuters’ experience using public transport. This idea surfaced from the insight that there was no training on how to become a good matatu operator. Naomi is professionalizing the industry by training workers and advocating for better business practices.

Because women report feeling safer in matatus owned and driven by women, Naomi created ‘Women in Transport Chapters’ (WIT) to attract, retain, and advance women workers in the matatu industry. Flone runs a comprehensive six-month driving course to help women conductors advance to become drivers, a position better protected from job loss. With WIT chapters in Nairobi, Machakos, Nakuru and Mombasa counties, as well as outside Kenya in Kampala and Dar es Salaam, WIT members have become a voice for transformation in the industry. They’ve also set up a member-financed loan fund to provide women in the industry with affordable loans, especially important in areas with limited access to traditional banking. This gave them the agency to invest in other businesses like mobile money transfer shops, beauty shops and greengroceries. Some women have invested in land and home ownership schemes in preparation for retirement, and some others invested in their children’s education by paying school fees.

Flone is empowering women across counties with the necessary skills to operate and invest in the transport sector. This has not only shaped their careers but has also improved the visibility of their capabilities and contributions in the sector. The organization has achieved this by offering different personal and professional development courses with over 2500 WIT professionals benefiting.

Naomi and her team are championing women to meaningfully engage in public transport leadership and decision-making processes. The women actively contribute to transport technical committees, working groups, research networks, and conferences at County, National, and Global platforms. Flone has achieved this by investing in leadership development by building the capacity of women transport workers through professional development courses and mentorship that has built their confidence to take up decision-making positions, meet stakeholders and effectively demand change on their own behalf.

Furthermore, the organization launched the Women in Transport database, which provides a global platform for women in transport professionals to access consultancies and employment opportunities. The database aims to provide employers, event organizers, and media outlets with access to a pool of knowledgeable and talented women in the transport sector. Currently, the database has over 130 registered women transport professionals.

On another level, Flone collaborates with county governments in helping them understand the challenges that both women transport workers and commuters face with the intention of creating a set of recommendations for the government to put in place. Naomi brought together county officials, researchers, donors, and residents and worked on a Sexual Harassment and Gender Sex Violence policy for public transport that was recently approved at a county level. Naomi is currently replicating a similar policy in another country, and she is committed to scaling it at the national level because, since Kenya’s independence, there has not been such a policy in place. Additionally, she is aiming to dissolve the levels of corruption in the industry by working on a Public Transport Code of Conduct for a Makueni county – with the aspiration to become a national policy - which will eventually regulate the sector and bring more power to the workers while removing power from cartels and other adjacent opportunists in the industry.

Naomi engages government agencies and county officials in other activities to create capacity at a state level. She provides training, like she did with the Nairobi City Council and State Department of Gender, incorporates them in research and invites them to stakeholders’ forums to discuss research outcomes. Moreover, The National Transport Safety Authority (NTSA) incorporated substantial information on sexual harassment in their revised driving school curriculum because of discussions with Flone. In this way, Naomi has become an asset to the government by providing knowledge and building capacity amongst other resources that help the government develop policies.

Working at the grassroots level has given Flone the credibility to become the “go-to” organization for labor unions to reach out to for industry advice. Flone and the Transport Workers Union of Kenya hosted a forum on transport workers’ rights to mediate between workers and traffic police, resulting in the first-ever venue where both parties could discuss issues and develop a consensus on how to handle them. Flone also worked with the Uganda-based Amalgamated Transport and General Workers’ Union to support women members and to create a Women’s Committee within the Union.

Wider changes in policy and public prioritization can be seen each year at Flone’s annual ‘Women in Transport Africa Conference,’ a gathering that brings together civil society, policymakers, city authorities, researchers, academics, industry workers, and students from across the African continent. It is the only professional platform for practitioners to share their experiences and challenges and to inform policy, research, and public interventions in the industry. Naomi envisions hosting future conferences in different cities in Africa to build a smart network of partners who can strengthen, formalize, and organize the transport industry in their countries.

Flone has strengthened the public transport feminist movement by providing a platform for women to champion and advocate for inclusion in the sector. The signature Women and Transport Africa Conference has provided an avenue for over 80 women engaged as speakers and session lead to engage in dialogues that have shaped feminist talks on including women in all their diversity in the transport agenda.

As an only child, Naomi held a special relationship with her introverted father. They read books and discussed them together to teach Naomi to think creatively, question norms, and foster curiosity. Her mother was a full-time secretary but was (and still is) a serial entrepreneur, who would involve Naomi in her ventures, ranging from making and selling soap, selling firewood, and supplying uniforms to security firms in Nairobi.

In her teens, Naomi’s family invested in a matatu. She felt a sense of pride knowing that her family’s matatu was one of the most popular minivans around, mostly – she suspects – because of its trendy paint job. She grew up watching her uncles as owners, drivers, conductors, and cleaners of matatus. For her family, public transport was a source of income and employment, and Naomi understood its importance to their passengers in accessing jobs and financial independence.

Naomi was very aware of the challenges family members faced working in transportation. All of them contended that corruption, bribery, and violence were endemic to the industry. Her uncles were the victims of a carjacking and shooting while driving their matatu, and Naomi herself was physically assaulted by a conductor. Yet, despite popular belief, Naomi saw the industry not as unfixable but rather as a neglected sector that was badly in need of transformation. In her university years, Naomi launched and led several student groups to spotlight and help women – from poetry slams and peer counseling to female self-defense initiatives. She realized that her female classmates remained especially vulnerable to harassment at the public transit terminals near the university. This gnawed on her and inspired her to act. What could she do about a cause she cared about and an industry she knew so well?

In 2011, while still in university, Naomi and some female friends started researching and piloting projects to create safe, sustainable, and accessible public transportation spaces for women and vulnerable groups. After graduating in 2013, Naomi formalized this work under the name Flone Initiative.