Kibera Shoes

About Solution

Nairobi produce 1700 tons of trash every single day, with the Nairobi city council admitting that they can only collect 5% every single day, leaving over 95% to create landfills, end up in Dandora dumping site, Nairobi river and some are burnt emitting CO2 on the air, in addition to unworthy vehicles on the road, this place Nairobi to one of the most polluted cities across East Africa. More often the trash block sewer lines causing flooding in the city during heavy rains causing damage to buildings and properties and in some cases loss of lives. Nairobi is a home of 5 million people with over 3.5 million people living in the informal low-income areas; areas with the largest trash, poor sanitation and over 60% unemployed youths with more 21% skilled artisans. Slum areas are characterized by crime, sex scandal, violence, drugs, and political instability. The most underlying factor is unemployment and lack of potential platforms that can leverage on utilizing local talents and locally available resources to create value that can enhance employment opportunities as well solve social problems facing these areas. Nairobi has an influx of 100 people moving to the city on a daily basis with the hope of finding decent work, sadly, they end up in the informal slums with miserable jobless lives and getting into the system of vicious poverty. While most spaces are filled with trash, families are burning them to create a safe environment, this is ending up polluting water, land, and air as well as making residents more vulnerable to diseases. Today Fashion Industry is the second most polluting industry in Nairobi after Oil industry, the emerging trends and increase in the population, this is hastening environmental genocide in Nairobi, adversely affecting the climate, and inhibiting most tourists from coming to the country for they fear for their health, with some taking business to Zanzibar and Dar Esalaam and Kigali. In two rows Kenyatta Conference Center has lost bid to host two major international conferences to Kigali International Conference, and the two reasons that made us lose such amazing business opportunity are pollution in Nairobi and safety since most young jobless youths have sorted to thuggery as an alternative means of living, sadly, even university students. Today Nairobi has lost over 10% of the productive land for waste and putting the lives of residents at a huge risk of a break out of diseases, children are at risk of accidents. 

Today Nairobi waste management is privatized, with private companies are licensed to collect waste on behalf of the country government at a fee, this model has only proven somewhat successful in high-end estates who can afford to pay for their waste to be collected, additionally we have some companies collecting and sorting to sell specific recycled materials to recycling companies, this is working but not effective and can only serve some percentage of Nairobi population. Kshoes is leveraging on a partnership with skilled artisans from the informal settlements in Nairobi utilizing a spectrum of recycled materials; used vehicle tires, African Kitenge, old jeans, pieces of leather from industrial companies to produce fashionable, quality and customized shoes sold both in Kenya and into the US/European markets. We create shoes from trash and selling in the international markets, generated revenues are plowed back into the business and 50% used to establish Kshoes Investment Fund, a specialized fund that has an environmentally conscious mission; we identify, train and mentors environmental and creative entrepreneurs building social ventures that shift Kenya from a linear to circular economy helping to create an environmentally friendly nation that thrives in best business practices that reduce waste, promote reused and enhance innovation and creativity. This directly reduces trash from the environment and create direct employment to youths in the informal settlements in Nairobi. 

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