Agnes Machache used to fry and sell fish for a living.
But this could not sustain her and her two children, including one in secondary school, so she decided to venture into unchartered waters for many —scuba diving.
“So I went to class for some time and got certification. But going to class and going into the sea are two different things,” she tells the Star.
Every morning, she and her male colleagues from the Bamburi Beach Management Unit get into a canoe and row their way into the deep sea to catch fish.
“I am the only woman in this BMU but I don’t fear. I have to do it,” the single mother says, adding that since they only use a canoe, they cannot venture deep into the ocean where there are more fish.
Sometimes they get as low as 2kg of fish.
“And we are seven or eight of us. It becomes impossible to divide. So we just sell the little we get, give ourselves like Sh200 each and deposit the rest of the money into the BMU account,” Machache says.
She says diving requires physical strength and for her, it was challenging at first, but then the thought of her children always pushes her.
“I had to get used to the ridicule and jokes, which sometimes are bad,” she says.
Hassan Ngare, also a diver and fisherman, says despite the many challenges, including poor equipment, he encourages Machache to soldier on.
“Sometimes we get accidents just like on the roads. But we encourage each other,” he says.
The diver says having Machache on their team was a challenge for them too but they had to overcome their doubts after seeing her determination.
“She even gives us valuable input that none of us, men, even think of,” Ngare says.
Machache is one of many women from the Coast region who are set to benefit from a women economic empowerment programme initiated by Basket One Consulting and Advisory Limited.
The company’s project manager James Wekesa says they have visited all the six coastal counties looking for women to empower in the blue economy sector, especially in aquaculture, maritime transport and logistics.
Basket One is being funded by the European Union through the German Development Corporation and works in collaboration with the Kenyan government and all the six coastal county governments.
“We have talked to women in the six coastal counties and there is a big challenge of information. Many still don’t understand what the blue economy entails,” Wekesa says.
He says through the man interviews they have had with the women, they will seek to come up with solutions to the challenges which will be contained in the Women Economic Empowerment Strategy that will be used to empower the women, especially in the aquaculture, maritime transport and logistics sector.
“This strategy will help improve skills of women involved in that space so as to be able to exploit more this area of interest and in the process earn more from it,” the project manager says.
The plan is to eventually get 40 women from across the six coastal counties of Mombasa, Kilifi, Kwale, Taita Taveta, Tana River and Lamu, who will be taken through specific courses in selected Vocational Training Centres in all the six counties.
Wekesa says two instructors will be selected to train the women in each of the six selected VTCs.
The GIZ will be the one to select the final 40 women after extensive interviews conducted by Basket One.
In Taita Taveta county, Voi VTC has been selected to offer the successful women the courses they will be taken through.
In Kwale, the Ukunda VTC is the chosen institution, while Kisauni VTC will be the facility in Mombasa county.
Gede VTC in Kilifi county will offer the course training while Lamu VTC and Kipini VTC will be the institutions of choice in Lamu and Tana River counties, respectively.
Wekesa says they focused on women because they are the most vulnerable and victimised and discriminated against by society when it comes to jobs in the blue economy.
“Women are the backbone of society yet they are the ones hindered from accessing benefits of the blue economy,” he says, adding that in the Coast region, men use religion to keep women away from the sector.
“We want to get more women involved in the blue economy space so they can advance society. It is the woman who raises the society and it is her who makes the society tick.”
In Tana River, he says, women are also involved in shepherding cattle but are not allowed to fish, adding that, like Machache, women do not have proper gears and equipment to venture into the blue economy space.
“The nature of the work also hinders some women. For instance, fishing requires that one wakes up very early, like 3am. It is not easy for a man to allow his wife to venture into the sea at such odd hours.”
Capital is also a challenge for many women and this has left many vulnerable to exploitation.
For instance, in the Luo Nyanza region, male fishermen, because sometimes women lack funds, give them fish in exchange for sex, sometimes infecting them with diseases, Wekesa says.
The successful 40 women will be taken through various skills training.
“Some will be trained on rearing special fishes like lobsters. Like in Lamu county there are lobsters in aquaculture who fetch around Sh7,000 per kilogramme.
“This is good money for Lamu women if they are trained on how to rear the lobsters in aquaculture,” Wekesa says.
In Kwale county, a women group in Kibuyuni plant algae from which they make lotions, cooking oil, food spices and soaps.
“We have taken 1,190 women through training workshops and from these, we have tools of selection which we used to select some 523, who we took for further training. We will then use the same tools to select the 40 that will be taken to the VTCs,” the project manager says.