Taita Taveta youth venture into leather value addition

Promotion of the leather value addition is key in positioning Kenya as a leading producer and exporter of quality leather products as the country seeks to attain Vision 2030.

The demand for leather and leather products globally is growing faster than supply.

The leather and leather products sector offers an important opportunity for industrialisation and job creation under the government’s Bottom-Up Economic Transformation Agenda (Beta).

The vision is for the country to be self-sufficient in locally produced leather and leather products.

The local leather value chain remains underdeveloped, however, with most hides and skins being sold as raw and wet salted.

A group of youth in Taita Taveta county is trying to change the narrative.

It is betting on leather value addition to generate income and give a lifeline to tens of herders in the region, who sell the raw hides and skins at a throwaway price.

In the heart of Mwatate, nestled at the foot of Chawia hills, Mathew Mghendi braces the strong scorching midday sun as he carries some of the tanned hides from the tannery to the workshop.

He has joined hands with his peers to make a living in the leather value chain. They have been incorporated in the Mwachabo community-based organisation (CBO).

The youthful leather crafters are now earning from their creativity as customers flock in their makeshift workshop in Danida to buy their products.

These include belts, knife handles, key holders, dog collars and muzzles, sandals and gloves.

“We started as volunteers at the CBO before customers started coming in,” Mghendi said.

“Our efforts are now bearing fruit because we have a number of orders that we are working on.”

Mghendi said he joined the venture out of passion and urge to offer a solution to his community, which usually threw away the raw hides every time they slaughtered a goat or sheep.

“I realised that people were losing a lot of money from brokers who bought raw hides for as low as Sh10,” he said.

“Others were even feeding dogs with raw hides. That is when I figured out how we can utilise hundreds of hides and skins produced in the local slaughterhouses every day.”

MENTORING PEERS

The 32-year-old father of one is a professional psychologist and mental health advocate.

He enjoys putting into practice his passion, while helping his fellow youth overcome mental challenges.

“Besides craft work, we talk about real issues with my peers about mental well-being. I treat this group as a network to help them stay focused and desist from crime,” Mghendi said.

The Daystar University graduate ditched white-collar jobs for leather craft work.

He sought to help young people in his community fight drugs and substance abuse, mental health issues and sexual reproductive health issues.

The interactive leather work gives him an opportunity to mingle with youth and help them discover their talents.

Many youths, he said, are now making money out of craft work, hence the need for the government to support such community-led initiatives.

Youth are grappling with unemployment, yet opportunity beckons in the leather industry.

"The raw materials are ready as there are several slaughterhouses that throw away skin, and vast ranchers whose core business is livestock,” Mghendi said.

Agnes Mbala is a month old in the Mwachabo group.

She says the work is better paying than the manual jobs she was doing before.

She is among the members who were recruited to help the group work on a basket value addition project.

“Somebody who is exporting the Taita basket has given us a tender to add value to the baskets by adding a leather finish. It is a good deal since we will produce hundreds of baskets,” Mbala said.

 The Taita baskets, commonly known as ‘vidasi’, are handwoven to meet international standards, and a touch of leather, beads, gemstones or Ankara is used to give them an outstanding finish, thus increasing their market value.

The Taita Basket Intellectual Property Mark is internationally recognised.

With the new venture, Mbala, who dropped out of university due to lack of school fees, is hopeful that she will save money and eventually go back to school.

The leather tanning process starts with a collection of hides from different slaughterhouses in the area. The hides are later tanned into leather at the group’s tannery in Mwatate.

With support from the TUI Care Foundation, group members were trained in leather tanning and production to produce high-quality leather that suits the market.

The TUl Wildlife project is being implemented by the African Wildlife Foundation and the Taita Taveta Wildlife Conservancies Association (TTWCA). 

“The support from TUI Care Foundation bolstered our production capacity,” Mbala said.

“We can now produce more leather and serve more customers.”

The tannery can produce at least 120 hides a month, placing the group at a better place to supply leather to local manufacturers.

TTWCA intends to improve livelihoods for the people of Tsavo through the development of a Tourism Circuit plan, supporting women in basket weaving and supporting youth in leather technology, says Alice Lenjo the lead person for the TUl Wildlife project.

“Women have been making baskets that are unfinished, thus making it difficult for them to attract the local and the lucrative international market,” she said.

“We have involved the youth in tanning skin into leather as an opportunity for them to earn a living but also support the women in value addition to the baskets.”

Daniel Ngongodi, the initiator of the Mwatate leather value addition project, said a single hide can produce products worth Sh6,000 to Sh9,500.

If fully capitalised, Ngongodi said, the leather industry can offer a stable source of income to hundreds of unemployed young people in the country.

UNTAPPED WEALTH

Taita Taveta Livestock executive Erickson Kyongo said the government's ban on export of unprocessed hide and skins has resulted in a depressed leather industry due to oversupply and few leather processing facilities.

The county has 14 medium to small slaughter facilities. The medium ones produce 54 tonnes a month, the small ones 12.

The raw hides and skins are valued at Sh600,000, based on the farm-gate prices.

The oversupply has left herders counting losses due to lack of market for hides and skins.

The region is mainly a livestock production area, with high potential for hides and skins production.

“The county produces 7,600 hides and 15,0000 skins that the county envisions to process for tanning, leather manufacture and leather products,” Kyongo told the Star.

The county, he said, has the potential for utilisation of leather and leather products in the manufacture of safety boots for wildlife ranges, leather gloves for sisal processing and leather finishing of the woven baskets.

These interventions in the value chain are expected to increase incomes from Sh600,000 to Sh83 million, and job opportunities from 300 to 150,000.

To address the challenges, the county government is investing in training slaughterhouse operators on proper flaying methods to ensure high quality of hides and skins, and investing in proper flaying methods.

This will ensure high quality leather and leather products.

The executive said the country’s vision of becoming an industrialised middle-income country by 2030 can only be achieved through increased value addition efforts in the leather value chain, among other value chains.

The leather sector presents an opportunity for the creation of 35,000 jobs and a subsequent increase in Kenya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by $150 million to $250 million (Sh19 billion to Sh33 billion), according to the Kenya Leather Development Council (KLDC).

The sector holds an immense market potential, especially in the area of finished leather, footwear and leather goods.

KLDC says Kenya, which now has more than 50 million people, produces at least 10 million pairs of shoes per annum, thus operating at a deficit with a shoe per capita of about 0.85.

Besides this, due to Kenya’s engagement with the wider East and Southern Africa, the country enjoys larger markets of the Comesa region, which in itself portends a demand of 100 million shoes.

LEATHER IMPORT BAN

To support local leather production, President William Ruto has pledged to ban the importation of the products by 2025.

Ruto said it was time Kenya supported local production of the raw material available.

"Our leather, we give dogs to feed on, but we choose to import leather from outside, which is costly. This is not right. There is no miracle in the imported leather. It is from the same cows," he said.

The Head of State said by having local manufacturing of leather products, jobs will be created.

The ban on leather imports is expected to catalyse the growth of local production and create an estimated 80,000 jobs, he said.

And as the country prepares to fully embrace locally manufactured leather products, the Mwachabo CBO youths are optimistic that they will one day rise to become top producers of leather products.

Meanwhile, they appealed to the government to support them under the Talanta Hela programme to acquire all the recommended machines for mass production of quality leather products.

They said they are aiming to recruit more unemployed youths across the county to join the much-ignored leather craft work.