Visiting Fair Trade Businesses in Kenya
Ian and Shelagh are Shared Interest ambassadors and the views in this post are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Shared Interest Society.
After a leisurely day yesterday being tourists today, Monday 13th, Has been busy visiting Trinity Jewellery Crafts and Bega Kwa Bega. These are two quite different enterprises. Trinity is run by Joseph, who had been a jeweller for 28 years since he was trained by a National Christian Council of Kenya project for people living in the Nairobi slums. He set up Trinity in 1984 with two partners who have both moved on to run their own independent businesses. In the past Trinity employed up to 15 people, though that dropped to 4 in the difficult years 1995-2005. Since then business has picked up again and there are now 7 crafts jewellers and 3 office staff working in the premises just outside the slums as well as a number of outworkers. They were all busy making brass earrings today. Each piece of jewellery is hand made by one person from start to finish – no production line or machinery here! All the current workers have been trained by Joseph and the design work is mostly done by him.
Fairtrade means not just fair wages but health care, sickness benefit and pension provision too. Trinity has been Fairtrade since 1989 and is a long-standing S.I. partner.
We then moved deep into the slums and eventually found Bega Kwa Bega. Fortunately we had Jane with us to direct the taxi driver, though we had to do the last bit on foot as the track was being dug up. Bega Kwa Bega means “shoulder to shoulder” and we were given a warm welcome by a dozen ladies keen to show us their goods, and several small children. The project aims to train women in sewing, basket-weaving, tie-dye and shoe-making so they can earn a legitimate living. We were impressed by the quality of the goods these ladies made with very basic facilities, how clued up they all seemed and determined to improve their lives. They all meet together every Monday morning for prayers and to discuss any problems they may have. They have been Fairtrade since 1993 but are new S.I. customers, having made contact with the local office and just taken a term loan to buy sewing machines to set up a tailoring school. No conventional bank would have lent to them as they have no assets.
Sadly, our planned visit to Undugu tomorrow won’t happen as our bus to Eldoret leaves at 7,30 in the morning, but we are looking forward to Mace foods on Wednesday.
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Bon voyage… I wish you enjoy your trip and the first hand feeling of meet the people involved in SI in Kenya. When you will como to Costa Rica?