Until July 2017, a dozen women from the village of Mayungu on the outskirts of Malindi were assumed to be insignificant, destitute and visionless.
Today, they are the rising, shining stars in the fishing industry, commanding attention and respect from men and women alike. As though to pronounce their cause clearly, they named their group ‘Mayungu High Vision Women’s Group’.
They have conquered deep-rooted myths and carved out their place in the vast town of Malindi. They have even bigger ambitions, and with the high gear on which they are riding, one can’t doubt their objective’s success. But how did they reach here?
“We used to come here at the shores to catch a few fishes by our buckets,” Mishi Boraafya, the group leader, said.
“However, we realised we could only get a little fish, and sometimes none. So we decided to team up and do the work jointly. We started with a few buckets, abundant hope, and today, we are here with beautiful bank statements, a boat and offices.”
In 2018, the women registered their group and got a certificate, which opened doors.
“With the social certificate, we joined the Mayungu Beach Management Unit and started trading fish as a licensed group,” she said.
In the formative years, the women were still using their buckets for fishing and hawking fish in town. Some of them fried some fish and sold them in town, while others went round in hotels and restaurants to sell the fresh ones.
While operating that way, trekking long distances from the shores to town, under the scorching sun, they were still not making much. Boraafya says fellow villagers and the men at sea regarded them as adventurous women and gave them a few days before they could fall.
Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Instead, a helping hand came their way, which catapulted their efforts to higher grounds.
We used to get little to no fish until we decided to team up. We started with a few buckets, abundant hope, and today, we are here with beautiful bank statements, a boat and offices
TRAINING SESSIONS
In 2018, the Ustadi Foundation enlisted the group for training and capacity building. That made a huge difference.
“Ustadi trained us on entrepreneurship skills, record keeping and the basics of ICT. We were also taken for capacity building seminars in Sagana and Nakuru, and that helped us,” Boraafya said.
After the training, they started to apply the knowledge learnt almost immediately.
“We started using the ICT skills to do online advertising for our business. As a result, we started getting orders from hotels and schools within Malindi,” she said.
“Besides, we stopped keeping cash accrued from the sales. We opened a bank account and started banking the little we got daily. Now we have books and all our money is accounted for and saved in the bank.”
Besides the training sessions, the Ustadi Foundation, under a programme called Vijabiz, gave them a freezer and a generator. The women also employed fishermen to do fishing for them and bought another cooler box to store more fish.
“We have four men who go out into the sea and bring us fish. We pay them every day. We store the fish in the freezer. We manage to sell almost all the fish we get by the close of the day,” Boraafya said.
“Due to the high demand for fish, we opened another shop at Kijiwetanga in town to serve the people of that area, because we realised that they were travelling a long distance to our first shop, which is away from the highway.”
Last year, the group won another competitive grant through the Ustadi Foundation. They were given half a million shillings. They used half the amount to buy a boat, and the rest to mitigate the effects of Covid-19.
“The pandemic almost threw us off balance. We ran into debts, and our landlords almost closed down our shops due to piling arrears. Hotels and schools shut down, so did our main market,” she said.
“But we talked with them and they were very understanding. They kept giving us grace periods until God opened the doors of the grant.”
Now they are planning to buy an engine for their boat so it can be fully utilised in fishing.
Ustadi Foundation, under whose watch the women have risen, says the group is now a pacesetter and a model from which other success stories will emerge.
“I believe that whoever does something passionately and patiently as these women do will strike success eventually, however long that might take,” said Erick Njue, the foundation programmes head in Kilifi county.
“It is through their hard work and determination that they have won the grants that they have so far.”
Due to their shine and sheen in the fishing business, the group has attracted men and women, who want to join them. However, the women are not ready to accept anyone, for their good, they say.
“We didn’t start easy; we have grown through problems and hardships. At this point, we decided that we shall not allow anyone else to join us, because that may complicate things,” Boraafya said.
“However, we are ready to help them start their group like ours. In fact, some come to our meetings to get a feel of how we do things, and they get to learn what they can do and perhaps do it better than we do.”
Bahati Fredrick is one of the admirers of the women's group. On this day of visit to the group at the shores, she was there with them.
“I would like to join them but now from what I have heard, it is not possible, however much I like what they are doing, and their level of organisation,” she said.
DIVERSIFICATION VISIONS
Going forward, the women have visions of diversifying their fish business.
“We are thinking of starting aquaculture to rear freshwater fish to supplement the catch from the sea,” Boraafya said.
“There are times when the ocean becomes so rough that no fishing can be done. During such times, we the people who have smaller fishing gear, which can’t withstand the high tides and storms, suffer a lack of fish. We are forced to go to the market to buy fish and resell it in our shops so as to retain customers.”
She said such arrangements make little profit, and sometimes even losses.
They are also planning to buy motorcycles to boost their distribution of fish in town and to do boda boda business to boost their income. Already, they have bought one motorbike and employed a local youth, something they are greatly proud of.
“We feel good when we see others prosper through us. That is why we are hoping to someday buy a big fishing boat so we can get more fish, expand our horizons and employ more people,” she said.
Besides serving the population of Malindi, the women also pack and sell their fish in Nairobi and Mombasa by order. However, they have set their eyes on the international market, too.
“If the Chinese can bring their fish to Kenya, why can’t we export ours to them? It is very possible and we will do it once we get a bigger fishing boat,” Boraafya said.
“And by the way, our fish tastes different from theirs, so we are sure they will like them. So we have a ready market out there, but first let us fully meet the locals’ demand.”
Edited by T Jalio
