Carine Bado Creates Platform to Help Parents Navigate Canada’s ‘Childcare Desert’

Carine Bado, CEO and Founder of My Little Tribe

The struggle to find childcare is a familiar one for Carine Bado. As the CEO and Founder of My Little Tribe, her frustration navigating what she calls Canada’s “childcare desert” is what led her to create a solution to ease the pain millions of parents deal with daily.

“The reality became very difficult and was impacting my life as a person, my career, my financial income – everything started to gravitate around childcare,” Carine says. “I needed childcare to be able to go to work, I needed childcare to pursue my career and keep thriving and even to supply to the needs of my family and that’s when I realized the system was a little archaic.” Last year, just over half of Canadian children ages 0-5 were in licensed or unlicensed childcare. Still, Statistics Canada says 49% of parents had a tough time finding childcare – with many kids languishing on waitlists.

Enter My Little Tribe. Having come to Canada as an immigrant, Carine would eventually become a mother, joining the ranks of parents across the country often left scrambling to find reliable childcare. Using her lived experience, she built a booking platform connecting parents with nannies, babysitters, and home daycares: private, independent childcare made easily searchable through a real-time booking system. Parents can go on the platform, enter their search parameters (including budget, language, and location, among others), and receive options based on their search criteria. The childcare provider will then receive the booking request, some information on the family and will then have the option to accept or decline the request.

“The challenge in western culture is that people have different things going on and sometimes the availability is not necessarily as easy to navigate,” Carine says, adding the startup is tech’s answer to a social problem. “It’s time to use some of the tools we have available to improve some of the realities families are facing.”  With a focus now on strategic partnerships, My Little Tribe is working with settlement and youth employment agencies, family agencies, or any organization providing training for ECE staff.

With technology facilitating change in fitness, health, finance, and other sectors, Carine believes childcare is just a natural progression. Her big goal now is to raise capital, a known challenge for Black tech founders. While data for Black tech startups in Canada is sparse, data out of the United States shows venture funding to Black-founded startups didn’t even reach $1B USD last year, the lowest since 2016. Many Black entrepreneurs are demonstrating traction with what they’re building but Carine says there remains a need to advocate for more investments in Black-led ventures. Understanding the unique challenges of Black entrepreneurs is a crucial first step to creating those opportunities for them to grow and thrive.  Carine remembers pitching her startup to potential funders and noticing she was either the only Black person in the room, the only woman in the room, or the only Black woman in the room.

“We have great ideas, we have great prototypes, we have great talent, we are ready to take on the world,” Carine says. “There should be more conversation around inclusivity so there is more of a focus on Black entrepreneurs.” The Black Entrepreneurship Knowledge Hub (BEKH) is bridging that gap by focusing on gaining insight into the experiences of Black entrepreneurs which can be used to shape policies that will have a meaningful impact on the growth of Black businesses. Black business owners across the nation are encouraged to participate in the BEKH survey, which could help shape the future of Black entrepreneurship in Canada.

As Carine looks at getting a team of tech developers, she knows there is a market for My Little Tribe. She remains hopeful it will keep growing, launching south of the border and in other countries as well. The challenges women are facing, she says, are universal.

“That’s what is driving me. It’s that awareness that something isn’t working in the system and it’s everybody’s business. It’s not the mom’s business, it’s not just the dad’s business – it’s everybody’s business,” Carine says. Childcare is a challenge affecting the family unit, the workplace, and the whole system. Accommodating childcare challenges last year meant 34% of Canadian parents had to adjust their work or study schedules, 33% had to work fewer hours and 31% postponed their return to work. “Everybody should be aware of the challenges and should be helping, should be contributing to fixing the issue.”