Gitugi Tea Factory Community Library Renovated and Restocked   |    Promoting sustainability in the smallholder tea sector   |    Diar Awards Win!   |   


Holistic Social Women Economic Empowerment Programme

Status: Ongoing

Period: March 2022 to current

Partner: Ekaterra

The project aims to directly enable 2,500 and indirectly reach 1,000,000 smallholder tea farmers and tea pluckers, especially women and youth in Kenya to access greater opportunities for their economic empowerment.

The major outcomes of these programmes are:

  1. Increased knowledge and awareness on social dynamics and financial literacy to support the empowerment of smallholder tea farmers and pluckers
  2. Improved financial inclusion through financial literacy and development of tailor-made financial products that address the needs of women smallholder tea farmers and workers (with a ratio of 60:40 women to men)
  3. Improve the economic resilience of workers, women, and youth tea smallholder farmers through alternative and complementary income-generating opportunities

Impact and Progress

  • 47 Business plans were developed by giving support to ten (10) selected groups per tea factory catchment area and a total of 50 groups. The groups were assisted to concreted their business ideas .
  • The programme trained 2,625 farmers on Business Model Canvas & 2,528 on Group dynamics & Management. The small holder tea farmers will be able to access greater economic empowerment opportunities through the facilitation of their Income Generating Activities. Entrepreneurship training, business development services and effective group management.