Kimlea Girls Technical Training Centre

Kazi Huvuna Matunda - "Hard Work Pays"

Kimlea Girls Technical Training Centre is located in Kiambu District, between Kiambaa and Tigoni. The Centre is surrounded by tea estates with villages of tea pickers, as well as families living off small holdings at subsistence level. The tea pickers come from all over the country in search of a better life. The workers are exposed to difficult work, having to be on their feet for long work days, 6 days a week come rain or shine, and in the process, earning very low wages paid according to the number of kilos of tea picked.
The casual labourers in Limuru’s tea picking villages are faced with numerous problems. They live in difficult conditions. One finds a family of 8 sharing a one roomed house provided by the tea estate. Women led households are common in the area. It is also common to find older children, especially girls forced to stay away from school in order to take care of their younger siblings so the mother or both parents can go off to earn the daily wage. When it comes to education, boys are normally given the priority.In an effort to uplift the women and girls living under these difficult conditions, Kimlea Girls Technical Centre was started in 1986. Informal classes were initially held in a wooden prefabricated building.

Later on, full-time courses were introduced to equip the girls and women with technical skills that would enable them to start their own businesses (small income-generating ventures) or find employment. Kimlea offers students with the necessary technical skills and other relevant competencies in the hospitality field required for food and beverage service, techniques on taking -processing-serving orders, basic aspects of housekeeping and laundry services needed by hotels, resorts, guest houses and office blocks. The institution offers students an opportunity to explore career(s) in Hospitality and Tourism that will help them develop the skills, attitudes and expertise that will assist them in their future workplace.

Similarly, women in the area have access to Kimlea Business Centre where they are taught various skills in cookery, dress making and agriculture together with basic business skills that they can use to start an income generating activity. Kimlea also runs a regular medical camp for tea pickers which has grown to what is now Kimlea Clinic.

Finally, Kimlea runs outreach programmes in surrounding villages, where members of staff run literacy and technical training courses to upgrade the women. More than 20,000 people have benefited from these programmes, offering them opportunities that until-now were undreamt of for many adults in the area. These interventions are geared towards raising their standards of living and giving families in the area a dignified life.