More about the “Mt. Kenya Tea”
Do the teas contain lot of minerals?
The answer is “Yes”. As we have ever heard about “Red Earth Soil in Africa”, some areas in Kenya are covered with this type of red soil, which is minerals-rich soil especially iron. The color of the earth is reddish, thanks to this iron-rich soil. Let’s have a look at the history of the earth. The highlands of the East Africa remain as the rocks of the Gondwanaland that was southern part of Pangaea, the first continent of the earth. The rocks of Gondwanaland have become the red soil due to weathering. The continent of Gondwanaland including current continents of Africa, India, Australia and South Pole existed 300 – 400 million years ago. As you may know the reason why the large continent broke up is because of the result of “the continental drift”. The continental drift theory is scientifically proved. The very first continent contained a lot of minerals. Australia is a good example as she has been producing a large quantity of iron ore. We can say that the rocks of the Paleozoic era had been formed by magma, which had spouted from the center of the earth and then had been cool down and become as thick as 10km, as a result the continental drift is minerals-rich. “The soil contains ‘metal’” sounds something harmful to your body. Contrary, “it contains a lot of ‘minerals’” sounds good to your health. In fact, the minerals that contain in this red soil are different from those metals from vicious factories. Some reports say it is good to your health to take minerals from the soil and as we know hemoglobin is the iron-containing oxygen-transport metalloprotein in the red blood cells of vertebrates, and the tissues of some invertebrates. In addition, when plants take this kind of minerals from soil, they grow faster and nutritious values go up. Our teas are grown at the slopes of Mt. Kenya where have volcanic soils (slightly acid) ranging between pH 5.0 to 5.6. The combination of the iron-rich soil and volcanic one is good for anti-aging!
Residual Agricultural Chemical Test
We value the relationship between the tea growers and our tea customers in Japan, beyond such documents as the “certificates of no-chemical to tea” issued by a third party, and also respect the farmers attitude of not to use chemicals to their teas. We have established the system which guarantees our tea is chemical-free. Although, having those certificates is not our first priority, our teas are examined every six months at Environment Research Center in Tsukuba City, Ibaraki Prefecture. So far the results of 200 items of residual agricultural chemical test have been approved clean and nothing harmful has ever been detected. In addition, surprise inspections by Kobe Quarantine Office at the Port of Kobe in the past and in several times have been carried out, when some teas from other countries were found containing chemicals that exceeded Japanese standard in a surprise inspection. Thus, such kind of test confirms that our tea is chemical-free.
Contribution To Tea Catchment Area
It has been our desire and very important for us to share some part of our benefit with our producers. We have therefore been contributing Ksh. 50,000 each to all primary schools within the Githongo tea catchment area since year 2003. Currently, there are 19 primary schools in the area where our tea growers’ children go. We combine the presentation of a cheque to a primary school with a Farmers seminar for a sensitization on agricultural chemical issues. A presentation to a school is regarded as a good forum to inform the pupils of the importance of education, and also to convey our message to our farmers who are their parents of not to spray any chemical on their teas.
The Githongo Tea Factory Education Scholarship
This program was initiated early year 2011 and is facilitated by Kenya-Japan Trade On Friendship Company Limited, the Company whose Managing Director is Mr. Masato Marukawa and is the Company that coordinates operations of our tea business. The program covers about 75% of secondary school fees of the disciplined students with needy background and are assisted from form one through to form four. The program is aimed at benefiting students from Githongo Tea Factory Catchment area to boost education levels for sustainable development of the area. So far in three years, 18 students in different secondary schools are currently benefiting from this program. Plans are underway to organize educational seminars on annual basis so as to mentor these students as future leaders.
Aid & Assistance To Other Areas
Tea catchment areas are not the poorest area, rather moderately wealthy as expected in a tea farming area. There are much more semi-arid areas that need assistance. Some of the projects and programs to have been assisted by our Company are as follows:-
a) Scholarship Program
We perceived that there was a big problem of transition from secondary school to university among local students, especially those from poor families in Nyandarua District. The cost in terms of lost talents and human resource was enormous. To help stem this loss, a scholarship program was initiated in 1995. From 1996 to 2006, 294 students have been assisted to pursue their secondary school education. Out of 294, 277 graduated from high school and 107 students went to the national universities. Since about 10,000 students only are allowed to join the Kenyan national universities annually out from about 800,000 children who were born in same year and hence, one has to be excellent if he/she wants to join a national university. Many of those whom we assisted have already graduated from various national universities and around 30 of them often come to our office to update us on their progress. Our office Chief Accountant is one of the beneficiaries of this program and some other two students; beneficiaries of this scholarship program are currently in attachment working at our office. The other day, one of the girl beneficiaries of this scholarship program came to inform us that she got a scholarship for a Master’s degree in public health from an Australian university. After her under-graduate studies from a national university, she worked for an NGO in some arid area near Somalia border. This kind of news from her makes us very happy and we wish her success. We have always encouraged our students to keep communicating with each other and if we were to call a meeting, it could gather more than a hundred beneficiaries. In the future, we would not ignore the possibility of having “corruption-free” MPs / ministers from our students.
b) Primary School Text Books
As from 1995 to 1998 we provided schools with 20,000 textbooks and sport equipents such as volley / soccer balls and nets. This support covered 35 schools in Oljoro orok and Ndaragwa divisions of Nyandarua District. Currently, the government assisted by European aid provides free-primary education which is a relatively great relief to the parents. Before the free-primary education program, it would be most likely to find two or three textbooks for one subject at a school and students had to copy what their teachers wrote from a textbook on the class black board. At the beginning of our program, we just provided textbooks. When we donated textbooks and included some sport items, those students were so happy and excited for the combination and thus making a regular combination of Text books and sport items in our donations to the schools. At the end of this program, some sports meets were held among the neighboring schools and this went along with organized seminars as well as tours to excellent national primary schools in Kenya for teachers and educators. In one occasion, we extended our contribution to schools outside Nyandarua District when we hired a school bus and went to Olympic Academy in Kibera slum, Nairobi and Mumias near the border to Uganda .In order to coordinate all those activities that include the scholarship program and textbooks donation, we head-hunted one of the middle-management executives from Nyandarua District Office of the Ministry of Education and opened an office in Nyahururu, the District capital. We also employed some of our scholarship students who would work at our office in their attachment vacation. Unfortunately, we had to close the office due to financial limitations in April 2007.
c) Water Projects
Meru North situated 25km away from Githongo Tea Factory is an area frequently hit by drought. The residents of this area approached us for assistance and eventually a water project was duly launched. The project successfully provided some five hundred households with clean tapped water from the local rivers.
d) School Feeding Program
Year 1999 was the year Ndaragwa division was severely hit by a serious drought and many households were affected. Many children dropped out of school. To alleviate this problem we initiated a school-feeding program in the worst affected region. For the whole year the project helped over two thousand pupils to concentrate in their studies during the worst time of the drought.
e) The MFAE Athletic Club
In order to tap young talented athletes, we sponsored a Community-based athletics club and contributed to improve the environment of local schools where most of the athletes were learning. In addition, this club nurtured Mr. Bedan Karoki Muchiri who eventually was a member of the athletic club of Hiroshima Sera High School and won the National Ekiden in 2009. Recently, Mr. Bedan Karoki participated in the 10,000 m, race at the just concluded London Olympics in London and finished at position 5.