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: 19 June 2018; Hits: 10640

Milk processor empowering youth in Kibera with business skills, reducing poverty and crime

Dickson Mulli of Milele Fresh Milk Company Mr. Dickson Mulli holding a packet of Milele Fresh milk at the comapny's head office in Kilimani, Nairobi. The company is engaging the youth in low income areas in business mentorship programme. Photo courtesy.

Millele Fresh Milk, a dairy processing company with its head office in Kilimani, Nairobi and regional offices in Limuru and Yatta is targeting youths in Kibera among other low income areas in the city with business training and opportunities in a bid to impact them with the necessary skills in the industry reducing crime and poverty among them.

According to the 2015 Situation of Youth and Children in Kibera survey by Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), an independent, non-profit research institution and a major international centre in policy-oriented and applied development research, 26.6 per cent of the respondents mentioned unemployment as their main problem followed by drug abuse and lack of education at 15.2 and 12.5 per cent respectively.

This has so far according to the survey seen a number of young people involve themselves in theft, mugging and robbery at 30.2 per cent, drug peddling and abuse/use at 13.5 per cent, prostitution at 5.6 per cent while rape and abortion at 4.4 and 4.2 per cent respectively.

“We understand the problem of most youth in these low income areas especially Kibera which is the biggest slum dwelling in Nairobi, this is why we have a Youth Empowerment Mentorship Programme through which we pass business skills and opportunities for some source of income,” said Mr. Dixon Mulli, the company’s CEO.

It all started in 2006 when Mulli who is also an IT expert, entrepreneur and with deep interest in youth mentorship, visiting schools among other institutions both on invitation and voluntarily to give motivational talks something which saw the youth frequently contact him for insights in business.

“Sometimes I could be invited to give motivational talks at a fee while in other occasions I volunteered to talk to the young people as part of my passion. I could connect some youths with other experts I knew were doing well in their various lines of businesses for more help.”

At some point he started engaging the youth in Kibera in his Milele Fresh milk distribution system as a way of passing business skills to them and giving the to earn extra money besides their dues from their daily hustles.

In this system the company would appoint youth community leaders then train them for free. They will later identify the youth from their respective locations who could be interested in being part of the system.

“We train these youths once in a month for free in an event where we also incorporate the local administration to make aware our business operations for necessary support just in case,” said Mulli.

Upon receiving trainings, the youth are registered with their respective community youth leaders where they are required to meet simple requirements like waking up at 4:30 am pick the milk from their respective community based depots then distribute it to various local shops until 7:00 am when they are set free to embark on their daily hustles.

“This helps them earn at least Sh300 depending on their various efforts within the three morning hours. This makes a very big difference for the youth who are committed as compared to the rest who just focus on a single casual job without any other source of income.”

In the CMI survey, 51.1 per cent of the youth in Kibera were found to be dependent and only 28.5% of youth were found to be engaged in small-scale income-generating activities and only 16.45% reported to be in formal employment.

Mulli is happy that since the business mentorship programme for the youth over 50 of them have benefited and involving the local administration and the local youth community leaders have help in ensuring its success.

“We have never experienced any problem with the youths because we work with willing individuals with a focus to change their lives for the better and having their own leadership has also help in achieving the goal.”

“We are now started replicating the programme to other areas which include Githurai, Mukuru kwa Ruben, Kawangware, Eastleigh and South B among other places as we encourage the youths in taking part in beneficial social and economic practices and not otherwise.”

Currently the company enjoys milk collection from about five saccos or farmer cooperatives through which they source milk from farmers across Nyandarua, Kiambu and Machakos counties with cooling plants in Limuru and Yatta.

Milele Fresh is a sister company to Synergy Solutions Kenya Limited (Synergy LTD) which is an investment and management company that has interests in real estate, food production, farming and agricultural consultancy, software development, construction of buildings and roads.

Milele Fresh

You can reach Milele Fresh Milk Company on +254 713865665 or Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Website: www.milelefresh.co.ke

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Saturday, 17 April 2021 Are they still in operation?

: 19 June 2018; Hits: 8091

Manufacturers of Kabras Sugar deny claims of poison in its product and assure Kenyan farmers it will continue buying cane

West Kenya Sugar Company has refuted claims of procuring poisonous sugar laced with mercury for repackaging and sale to unsuspecting consumers.

Earlier this month, police raided a warehouse in Eastleigh, Nairobi and found more than 2,000 bags of sugar deemed unfit for human consumption with reports indicating that it was to be transported to Mumias and West Kenya Sugar factories for repackaging.

“We wish to confirm that West Kenya Sugar Company Limited was not the proprietor of the sugar reportedly seized by government authorities at Eastleigh in Nairobi on 5^th June 2018,” said Tejveer S. Rai, the Managing Director of the company.

In a statement, the company which is the producer of Kabras premium white Sugar and Kabras brown sugar says that it will continue supporting over 60,000 small-scale sugar cane farmers are contracted by West Kenya Sugar Company Ltd to supply the factory with local sugar cane.

The Company said it will continuously invest in its contracted farmers and has invested over Sh400m in the last 18 months in cane development. The company pays farmers seven days after delivery.

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This comes at a time when the area under cane reduced to 191.2 thousand hectares in 2017 compared to 220.8 thousand hectares in 2016. Reduction in cane area was attributable to conversion of some area under cane to other crops. Further, the quantity of cane delivered to factories reduced by 33.3 per cent from 7.2m tonnes in 2016 to 4.8m tonnes in 2017.

This was on account of prolonged dry weather conditions which were un-favorable for the growth of cane leading to harvesting of immature cane. As a result, the average sugarcane yield reduced to 55.3 tonnes per hectare in 2017 compared to 62.2 tonnes per hectare in 2016, representing a decrease of 10.9 per cent.

The extended drought experienced in Kenya in 2016-2017, which was declared a national disaster caused a rise in retail sugar prices from an average of Sh100 per kilo to Sh200.

As a result, the Kenyan government granted a four-month duty exemption for sugar imports up to 31^st August 2017.

“In view of the exceptionally reduced supply of cane available from our preferred local farmers caused by that drought, West Kenya Sugar Company Limited along with several other companies, consequently applied for and were granted a license to import bulk brown sugar by the Agriculture and Food Authority (AFA),” said Rai.

The company said the imported sugar was ferried to its factory in Kakamega for further processing to conform to Kenya Bureau of Standards quality.

The total domestic sugar production declined by 41.2 per cent from 639.7 thousand tonnes in 2016 to 376.1 thousand tonnes in 2017 according to the 2018 economic survey report.

A total of 989.6 thousand tonnes of sugar was imported in 2017 to bridge the deficit occasioned by the low production during the year. Most of the sugar imports were meant for final consumption at 83.1 per cent of total sugar imports.

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: 13 June 2018; Hits: 6777

Kenya food imports rise by 30 per cent despite improved weather

Food imports into Kenya rose by 30.1 per cent to Sh68.63bn in the first four months of 2018 compared to Sh52.75bn in a similar period in 2017 despite improved weather conditions favorable for crop development, the Central Bank of Kenya reports.

The statistics revealed that Kenya’s reliance on foreign markets to feed her population estimated at 46m people has risen by four and half times as the country imported food worth Sh15.09bn from January to April of 2008.

The rise is attributed to over reliance on rain fed agriculture at the expense of irrigation technologies that can ensure production of crops all year round.

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According to the ministry of agriculture, Kenya has 5.5m hectares of arable land, but only 17 per cent is suitable for rain fed agriculture with productive crop areas shrinking.

In this, only three per cent of arable land is irrigated with majority of farmers growing maize, pulses, fruits, tea, roots and tubers.

The ministry however, reports that if drip irrigation was applied, Kenyan farmers could increase their crop yields by up to five times.

Over reliance on rain fed agriculture coupled with the fall army worm infestation in some areas resulted in lower production of maize leading to decreased volumes of marketed maize.

food prices

According to the 2018 economic survey report, maize production decreased by 6.3 per cent from 37.8m bags in 2016 to 35.4m bags in 2017

Maize imports thus increased more than eight fold from 149 thousand tonnes in 2016 to 1,328 thousand tonnes in 2017. Rice imports increased by 23.1 per cent from 508.0 thousand tonnes in 2016 to 625.1 thousand tonnes in 2017.

The government chipped in to subsidize the skyrocketing prices of a two kilogram packet of maize flour from Sh140 to Sh90 hence relieving consumers.

Wheat production reduced by 23.1 per cent from 214.7 thousand tonnes in 2016 to 165.2 thousand tonnes in 2017.

In order to meet the deficit in production, wheat imports increased by 36.2 per cent in 2017 from 1,362.3 thousand tonnes in 2016.

As for rice, an additional 7,363 hectares of land was placed under irrigation in 2017, representing a 50.5 per cent increase. This was largely attributable to the expansion of acreage in the out grower areas within the Mwea irrigation scheme.

Similarly, the number of plot holders practicing irrigation rose by 25.1 per cent to 16,326 in 2017.

Despite the increase in the area cropped and the increase in the number of plot holders, the volume of total paddy declined by 20 per cent to 81.2 thousand tonnes in 2017.This resulted to a 22.5 per cent decrease in gross value of output from all scheme areas to Sh4.4bn in the review period.

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