An app helps Kenyan hair braiders who were left behind by the digital gender gap

Jemima Atieno, a hair braider from Kenya, built her business over many years in Nairobi’s busy Kenyatta market. But after the pandemic, her customers went online to find similar services, and she lost business.

The 52-year-old man told Reuters, “I don’t know how somebody can get to social media.” This shows that Kenyan men have benefited from the country’s growing online gig economy while women have been left behind.

But when she found “Braiding Nairobi,” an app where people can order braiding services to be brought right to their home, it helped her business. This is similar to how Uber, Glovo, and other digital platforms have changed food and shopping delivery.

Natachi Onwuamaegbu, the 25-year-old founder, told Reuters that she started the app in May after going to Kenyatta market and talking to braiders for a story project. The market has hundreds of hairdressers.

People who worked with Onwuamaegbu said their business did better after she shared their stories on Instagram and a blog.

She realized she could level the playing field so that “you don’t have to be super good at Instagram and social media to be able to reach a wider web of customers.”

According to a study from the International Labor Organization in 2023, Kenyan women have less reliable internet access than men, and because they have less schooling, they also have fewer digital literacy skills.

A study from 2023 funded by the Alexander Von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society found that only 28% of gig workers in Kenya are women and that most of them are under 25 years old.

Onwuamaegbu calls some braiders to check orders because they don’t have good data or aren’t used to using the app.

About 100 hair braiders and 180 users have signed up so far, and more are on the waiting list. Onwuamaegbu wants to slowly grow the app.

Lawyers say Kenya doesn’t have enough rules to control the gig economy.

A researcher named Kutoma Wakunuma said, “There needs to be some kind of rules in place to make sure that the gig workers are safe.” “But these policies are slow in the making.”

But braiders told Reuters that the business benefits are greater than the risks.
“This app makes everything easy—the prices, the styles, and the needs of the client,” Esther Mulandi said as she skillfully braided a customer’s hair. “For me, it’s working and growing very fast.”