Trust For Indigenous Culture And Health (ticah)

What Trust For Indigenous Culture And Health (ticah) does

Trust For Indigenous Culture And Health (TICAH) is a Kenyan non-profit trust founded in 2003 and headquartered in Karen, Nairobi. The organization operates at the intersection of indigenous knowledge preservation, community health, and cultural production, serving communities across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. TICAH runs a portfolio of programs including the Matawi Plant Database (a documentation platform for indigenous botanical knowledge), museum installations developed in partnership with the National Museums of Kenya, the Braid Arts & Culture Fund (a micro-grant program funded by the British Council), the Aunty Jane SRHR sexual and reproductive health hotline, and the Healthy Seeds Calendar (a recurring community cultural product).

The organization's revenue model is grant and donation-based. The British Council is the named institutional partner for the Braid Arts & Culture Fund, with grant awards documented at 100,000 KES (2023), 700,000 KES (2024), and 750,000 KES (2025), reflecting a consistent upward trend. TICAH employs between 11 and 50 staff and operates programs across multiple East African geographies. Recent product development has included experimental use of generative AI for ancestral storytelling and augmented reality in an indigenous cookbook product, signaling selective adoption of emerging technologies to extend cultural content delivery.

TICAH's strategic positioning rests on two decades of relationship capital with elders, artists, and community knowledge holders, providing it with privileged access to indigenous knowledge data assets and community distribution channels. Its combination of cultural, health, and arts programming creates a multi-vertical operating model uncommon among smaller East African NGOs.

Name

Trust For Indigenous Culture And Health (ticah)

Legal name

Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health

Website

https://ticahealth.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2003

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

11–50 employees

Short description

Trust For Indigenous Culture And Health (TICAH) is a Kenyan non-profit founded in 2003 that documents indigenous knowledge, delivers community health services, and funds cultural production across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Community Health and Cultural Heritage Services

NAICS

Health Care and Social Assistance (62), Social Assistance (624), Human Rights Organizations (813311), Museums, Historical Sites, and Similar Institutions (712)

SIC

Services-Social Services (8300), Services-Health Services (8000)

akta.pro primary industry

Community Health, Prevention & Health Education (BPAGACAC)

akta.pro secondary industries

Indigenous, Ethnic & Folk Arts/Heritage Organizations (BPAGAHAI), Minority, Indigenous & Disability Rights (BPADAGAH), Gender Equality & Women’s Rights (BPADAGAF)

Keywords

• Indigenous health programs
• Cultural heritage preservation
• Community health education
• Sexual reproductive health
• Arts grant funding

Headquarters

HQ city

Nairobi

HQ country

Kenya

HQ region

Africa

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Others, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D

Revenue model

1. Donations and Charitable Contributions: TICAH generates revenue through individual donations via M-Pesa and PayPal, with suggested donation amounts ranging from $10 to $5,000 for various programmatic purposes including SRHR education, art programs, and indigenous knowledge preservation.
2. Braid Arts & Culture Fund Grants: TICAH administers grant funding from the British Council through the Braid Fund collaboration, distributing grants up to 750,000 KSH (~5,000 USD) to East African art and culture practitioners across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

TICAH is a Kenyan non-profit trust that promotes holistic health through indigenous knowledge preservation, sexual and reproductive health (SRHR) education and services, and arts-based community programs. Its core offerings include community health education for low-income families, an SRHR hotline (Aunty Jane Hotline), the Matawi Plant Database documenting Kenyan medicinal plants, museum installations at National Museum of Kenya and Uhuru Gardens, and grant administration through the Braid Arts & Culture Fund in partnership with the British Council for East African art and culture practitioners.

Product overview

TICAH operates primarily as a digital health and cultural heritage organization offering the Matawi Plant Database as its main online resource - a comprehensive directory of Kenyan medicinal plants with traditional remedy information. Supporting programs include museum installations at National Museum of Kenya and Uhuru Gardens, the Braid Arts & Culture Fund grants for East African artists, the Aunty Jane SRHR Hotline for sexual health counseling, an Interactive Guide on Notion, and the Healthy Seeds Calendar resource. The organization focuses on holistic health connecting culture and wellness, indigenous knowledge preservation, and supporting Kenyan artists through grants and programming.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Braid Arts & Culture Fund: A collaboration between TICAH and British Council offering grants to innovative practitioners of art and culture projects in East Africa.
• Matawi Plant Database

Products and services

• Matawi Plant Database A comprehensive searchable database of Kenya's local plants and their healing properties, organized by plant catalogue and health conditions, featuring scientific names, local names across ethnic communities, traditional preparation methods, and health conditions treatable.
• Braid Arts & Culture Fund Grant program offering up to 750,000 KSH to art and culture practitioners in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda), with Collaboration, Completion, and Continuation grant categories supporting innovative projects that strengthen cultural practices and intergenerational connections.
• Aunty Jane SRHR Hotline

Quantifiable outcome

• 195,000 community members equipped with health knowledge and rights awareness
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers4 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

AI capability4 records

Feature2 records

Partnerships

Two partnerships are on record, tiered core.

• British CouncilcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 1 January 2023The Braid Arts & Culture Fund is a collaboration between TICAH and the British Council's Cultural Heritage for Inclusive Growth (#CultureGrows) program. The fund offers grants up to 750,000 KSH (~5,000 USD) to art and culture practitioners in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. The British Council provides funding and programmatic support while TICAH manages grant administration and community engagement.
• National Museums of Kenya (NMK)coreStrategic or Co-development PartnerTICAH and NMK have a long-standing relationship spanning over 10 years. TICAH created, maintains, and continues to program museum installations including the Medicine Shield Garden (opened 2008), Kaya ya Mto (River Shrine, 2009), Peace Path (2012), River of Stones (2016), Mahali pa Umoja (2016), and DreamKona (2017) at various NMK locations.

Scale indicators7 records

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Hivos East Africa: International NGO operating cultural rights, SRHR, and arts programs across East Africa. Comparable on cross-border cultural grantmaking, indigenous rights advocacy, and arts-for-healing programmatic framing.
• UHAI EASHRI: East African sexual health and rights activist fund supporting SRHR and gender justice across Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. Directly comparable to TICAH's SRHR hotline and gender-norms work, plus its multi-country grantmaking model.
• AMREF Health Africa: Africa's largest health-focused NGO, headquartered in Nairobi with cross-border community health, SRHR, and training programs. Closely comparable to TICAH on health education for low-income Kenyan communities and East African geographic footprint.

Emerging players

• Sauti Kuu Foundation: East African foundation supporting youth, sports, and cultural empowerment for vulnerable communities. Comparable on arts-as-healing and youth-focused community programming.
• African Conservation Trust: African NGO working at the intersection of community livelihoods, indigenous knowledge, and conservation programming. Comparable on indigenous-knowledge preservation for underserved East African communities.

Broad incumbents

• The Green Belt Movement: Kenyan community-based NGO with deep grassroots networks, indigenous knowledge ties, and donor-driven programming. Comparable in mission-led, donation-funded structure and community health-and-culture overlap, though focused on environment rather than health.
• National Museums of Kenya: Kenya's flagship museum institution and TICAH's longest-standing partner. Comparable as the institutional home for TICAH's heritage installations and as a peer in cultural preservation infrastructure.

Others

• British Council East Africa: TICAH's principal institutional partner and funder of the Braid Fund. Comparable as a cultural-diplomacy and arts-grantmaking actor in the same East African geography, though operating at much larger scale.
• African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) – Innovation Hub: AMREF's innovation arm develops digital health and community education tools for underserved populations. Comparable to TICAH's Matawi Plant Database as a digital platform translating indigenous/community knowledge into scalable health resources.

Regional players

• Pawa254: Kenyan creative hub supporting artists, activists, and storytellers. Comparable to TICAH's arts-and-healing vertical and Nairobi-based artist support ecosystem.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xtwitter.com/TICAH_KE
• Facebookfacebook.com/TICAHKenya
• Instagraminstagram.com/ticah.ke
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/trust-for-indigenous-culture-and-health-ticah

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

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M&A

Investments

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Frequently asked questions about Trust For Indigenous Culture And Health (ticah)