The SHOFCO Women’s Empowerment Project (SWEP) began in 2004, when Kennedy Odede saw the discrimination and abuses that women living with HIV face.  In the large first-floor meeting space of the Shining Hope Community Center, members of SWEP sew kanga fabric to make bags and bead bracelets for sale in Kenya and in the United States. SWEP provides a living wage to women living with HIV/AIDS, and also helps them to launch micro-enterprises by providing training focused on business skills and saving.

Every participant in the SWEP project has now launched a small business to provide for her family.  The SWEP project also runs support groups for participants, focusing on issues associated with HIV, widowhood, and stigma. The program also employs a group savings and loans methodology that helps members to save and launch micro enterprises that eventually help lift participants to stability.