Sandal-makers tread new grounds with used tyres

Ms Angela Gamba, a marketer with Green Sandals Design, a youth group based in Nakuru, displays some of the products they make. Photo/Suleiman Mbatiah  

By Mercy Gakii, mgakii@ke.nationmedia.com

When Angela Gamba, a marketer, joined a group of sandal makers three years ago, she had no idea she would be charting new ground.

The group, Makuti Youth, is now receiving orders from among other clients, top tourist hotels in Nakuru for their trendy footwear called “Green Sandals”.

The soles of the sandals are made from recycled car tyres. “It all began with a six-week course conducted by Hope and Vision Sacco in Nakuru where I learnt how to advance my business,” says Ms Gamba. The beneficiaries were all traders in Nakuru town who had no previous entrepreneurial training.

“I learned marketing skills, customer relations and basic book-keeping, which helped me to manage the little capital I had saved.”

Ms Gamba started by selling earrings, jewellery and other small ornamental objects in offices in Nakuru town. She could make up to Sh3,000 in a day which she ploughed back into the sandal business.

As part of the training, she came up with a project idea which she pitched to the trainers. She convinced them that the ordinary Akala sandals once famous with the Maasai and other pastoral communities could be made more attractive and sold to tourists.

By then she had joined Makuti Youth Group. The trainers liked her idea of customising the sandals to depict Kenya’s rich culture by using soft materials such as leso and kikoy and other cloths bearing the colours of the national flag.

This got seed funding from the training team, which Ms Gamba and her partners used to buy more materials.

She came up with new ways of adding value to the products, which the rest of the four-member group liked. They transformed the sandals from drab and hardy footwear to, trendy work of art and fashion.

The group also makes clutch bags, wallets and other accessories, but the green sandal is their flagship project.

Despite challenges such as lack of a specific outlet to sell their products and the headache of dealing with customers who fail to pay for their orders, Ms Gamba and her friends are not deterred.

“By the end of the year, we hope to open an outlet in Nakuru town for both wholesale and retail customers,” she says.

The group also plans to add beadwork to some orders from hotels.

“We have received a good order for sandals, although the client wants something that we have not tried before. But we have seen the business opportunity there and will use our creativity to deliver.”

According to Ms Gamba, opportunity to sell their products comes in many forms. One of them is to search the Internet for top hotels in the Rift Valley and book an appointment with the manager.