Take one discarded beer keg, a motor from an old washing machine, a cylinder of compressed CO2 gas, a little ingenuity, and lots of used plastic soda bottles. Put them all together and what do you get?

"I'm sorry, Patrick, but I can't employ you any longer." To a young carpenter's apprentice living with his wife and three children in a dilapidated shack in one of Nairobi's congested slums, those words fell like a boulder on his heart. Patrick's boss explained that he had no choice. Thieves had broken into his business, stealing all his tools and lumber, as well as his entire inventory of windows, doors and furniture. Unwittingly, they also stole Patrick's job, which was providing just barely enough to feed his family and pay the rent on their little shack.

On a busy street corner in the center of Kitale, Kenya, I met Christine Lukanda, wife, mother of two teens, and owner of a colorful fruit stand. Her tables hold small mountains of mangoes, bananas, oranges, lemons and other locally grown fruits and veggies.

Duncan Owino had a new wife and no job—hardly a good way to begin a marriage. In Nakuru, Kenya, however, where Duncan lives, such a plight is not uncommon. Poverty and unemployment are endemic there, but neither prevent young men and women from marrying.