This archive report was first published on 6 August 2019.
On a sunny day in Nyeri County, the G-Star Youth Group is busy milling banana porridge flour fortified with maize and sorghum. The group's Chairman, Charles Wachira, recalls how the idea of starting the group hit him in 2013. 'We had realized that brokers were buying bananas at a throwaway price and we decided to do something about it,' he says.
Wachira and his team started as eight members, determined to build an industry to process bananas into flour, jam, and other products. However, sourcing funds proved to be a challenge. In 2015, they managed to get Sh50,000 from Uwezo Fund and Sh100,000 from Youth Fund, but it wasn't enough to accomplish their goals.
Despite the setbacks, the group persevered, and luck smiled on them when the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) came on board. USAID sponsored them for a course on food processing technology at Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture & Technology (JKUAT), where they were awarded certificates. They also sponsored them for benchmarking tours to gain more knowledge.
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) later trained them on Book Keeping and Marketing. However, the group still faced financial constraints, and some members were frustrated. It wasn't until they sought help from the County Government of Nyeri that their fortunes changed.
The Governor allowed them to use Wambugu Farm Agricultural Training College facilities to produce their maize flour in 2016. The group's hope was rekindled once more when Upper Tana National Resource Management Project invited proposals from groups with projects they wanted to fund. Their proposal of Sh1.8 million to build an industry was passed, but they had to contribute 10 percent, which was Sh180,000.
After a year-long process, the County Government allocated them a piece of land within Gathinga Vocational Training Centre, and their dream finally came true. The industry was built, and the group's banana porridge flour was commissioned in February this year.
Today, the group manages to sell their product locally in Nyeri town and Nairobi in small quantities. They hope to increase their marketing and distribution capacity soon to reach as many people as possible.
