Kuza Kazi initiative, aims to economically empower a total of 1,000 youth from Nairobi County in the next three years/Courtesy
NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 10 – The Coca-Cola Central, East and West Africa Limited (CEWA) together with its bottling partner Coca-Cola Beverages Africa (CCBA), Kenya has donated fifty business kits to soft beverage vendors in Nairobi County in an initiative dubbed Kuza Kazi.
The starter kits consisting of an ice box, a parasol, products i.e. soft drinks, water and juices and branding materials were costed as an initial investment into their business.
The beneficiaries will operate under the direct supervision of the Coca-Cola bottling partners who will integrate them into the Coca-Cola retail network as well as fulfil vendors’ product orders, offer training and sales support,” said Mr. Patrick Nyamai, Entrepreneurship and Financial Services Manager, K-YES Program, USAID.
According to statistics from the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS), seven million Kenyans are unemployed in the whole country.
It turns out that Nairobi County has a labour force of 2.1 million of which 1.2 million is comprised of the youth. Out of the 2.1 million persons in the labour force, 1.8 million are classified as employed while 315,844 are seeking for employment.
Through the Kuza Kazi initiative, the Coca-Cola system aims to economically empower a total of 1,000 youth from Nairobi County in the next three years by equipping them to start table-top businesses. The youth will then join Coca-Cola’s retail chain distribution network using Coca-Cola products as anchor products to enhance their income and savings, expand their business, and build their potential to become future employers.
“As Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, we are today delighted to partner with the County Government of Nairobi as we seek solutions to address the unemployment situation in the county currently pegged at 14.7 percent of the potential labour force. We are also working closely with financial institutions and the international development agency, USAID to support our youth,” said Victoria Macharia, Sustainability Co-ordinator, Public Affairs and Communication, CCBA.
She added: “Through the Coca-Cola Foundation, we began with the global 5by20 initiative aimed at empowering 5 million women by 2020. In Kenya, for instance, we have economically empowered 544,000 women since 2011.”
Rolled out in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoppers (PwC) as the project managers, the Kuza Kazi initiative aims at not only creating employment opportunities, but also formalizing the informal sector which currently represents over 80 percent of employment in Kenya.
The initiative is designed to work through the existing Coca-Cola ecosystem, utilising the supply chain operated by the Coca-Cola bottling companies (Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, Almasi Beverages, and Coastal Bottlers).
The Kuza Kazi initiative, seeks to harness the power of Coca-Cola’s supply chain to create 50,000 jobs for Kenyan youth every year in partnership with donors, like-minded private sector entities and support from county governments.
