Empowering Communities, Preserving Ecosystems: Kumbatia's Commitment

🌊🐟 Empowering Communities, Preserving Ecosystems: Kumbatia's Commitment 🐟🌊

📅 On Wednesday, Kumbatia, alongside NGO partners NRT (Northern Rangelands Trust) and FFI (Fauna & Flora Int’l), conducted a specialized training program for our Lamu Archipelago-based dealer network.

🏢 The training took place at NRT Offices in Lamu Town, where BMU chairman, ice plant operators, and dealers from the communities of Kiunga, Kiwayu, Faza, Shanga Rubu, and Shanga Ishakani congregated. They were provided with free accommodation, meals, transport to and from, and a daily wage for attending the training.

🙋‍♂️ Who are these dealers, you ask? They are the traders at the community level that we work with. Historically, they were tasked with finding markets for a fisherman's catch and coordinating transport of that seafood to the middlemen they were selling to. Under Kumbatia, their roles have pivoted and they are now primarily responsible for supporting fishers with coolers, fuel, and ice, managing assets leant to the community, complying with data capture requirements, and ensuring that all product meets Kumbatia’s traceability, sustainability, and quality standards and arrives to our transport vessels on time.

🎓 The training took a holistic approach. Not only did it focus on technical instructions related to stocktaking, data input, quality assurance, traceability and sustainability enforcement, fisher input support, and the packing of fish into coolers for transport, but we also conducted trainings around entrepreneurship and even reviewed in detail Kumbatia’s core values and mission.

🌊 Kumbatia is committed to increasing profits and resiliency for itself and its partner fishing communities, preserving Indian Ocean fishing cultures, and conserving marine ecosystems. None of that is possible without our dealers.

🚀 Stay tuned for more updates on how we're weaving environmental consciousness and community empowerment into the fabric of Kumbatia Seafood. Together, we’re working to transform East African fisheries.