In 2017, while serving as a student nurse in Kenya, Naom Monari came face to face with the harsh realities of chronic illness. Beyond the clinical burden, she witnessed the deep economic, emotional, and social toll that long-term disease placed on patients and their families, missed workdays, long hospital journeys, mounting costs, and quiet despair.
But Naom chose action over apathy.
With no formal business training, no entrepreneurial background, and still in nursing school, Naom founded Benacare, a bold response to a broken system that centralized care far from the people who needed it most. She had no roadmap. What she had was conviction.
“I didn’t wait until I was ready,” she often says. “There is no such thing as ready. There is only now.”
The journey was anything but easy. Naom learned business through hard knocks, failing repeatedly, making costly mistakes, and navigating moments where giving up felt like the logical choice. But resilience became her defining trait. Each setback sharpened her resolve. Each failure became a lesson.
Today, Benacare has grown into one of Kenya’s most impactful healthcare innovation companies. The organization has:
Provided home-based nursing care to over 60,000 patients.
Onboarded more than 9,000 nurses onto its platform, creating sustainable income opportunities for healthcare workers.
Partnered with government and development institutions to strengthen healthcare delivery.
In February 2025, Benacare reached a historic milestone with the launch of Renal Roads by Benacare, Sub-Saharan Africa’s first mobile dialysis facility. Built through rigorous research and innovation, the mobile unit takes life-saving renal care directly to patients.
Since its launch, Renal Roads has:
Delivered over 6,000 dialysis sessions.
Reduced patient travel distance by more than 76%.
Significantly improved treatment adherence among renal patients.
The impact is tangible: fewer missed sessions, lower costs, better health outcomes, and restored dignity for patients who once had to travel long distances multiple times a week just to stay alive.
But for Naom, success is about more than numbers.
Building Benacare from the ground up has meant lowering healthcare costs, proving that patients can pay for quality care closer to home, and demonstrating that sustainability and impact can coexist. It has meant enabling economic growth by creating jobs for healthcare workers, and showing that African-born solutions can lead global health innovation.
At just 24 years old, Naom founded a company and never looked back.
She believes there is no other way to live her life except innovating in healthcare, building systems that work for people, and pushing boundaries others accept as fixed.
She believes there is no other way to live her life except innovating in healthcare, building systems that work for people, and pushing boundaries others accept as fixed.
Naom Monari’s story is a testament to what is possible when courage meets purpose. It is proof that with resilience, vision, and relentless belief, it can and will be done.
