Microenterprise Initiatives

Goal

The Mercy Center Foundation seeks to facilitate partnerships and assistance programs that will allow the Mercy Secondary School to move towards becoming a fully self-sustainable school in future.

Need

The majority of the population are peasant farmers in Lare, Kenya. Thus, low household incomes, poverty, debt, unemployment and under-employment are stifling the region’s ability to grow economically and improve their living standards. Additionally, cultural bias against women entrepreneurs exists. The Mercy Center Foundation, USA (MCF USA) and Mercy Center Lare (MCL) want to break this negative cycle and move the community toward self-reliance and sustainability. We are seeking technical and university experts as well as enterprise financing, training and partnerships that will create new livelihoods, opportunities for youth and women and economic growth for the Lare villagers and the region at large.

Pilot Activities

The cultivation of cash crops, cattle and poultry programs and an expansion of a piggery and animal husbandry programs have been developed. Cows, sheep, rabbits and chickens are now part of the farm management program contributing to the overall support of the Secondary School’s annual budget plan. Chives have recently been harvested and are being sold on the market in order to support the farm budget and the school budget.

In 2022-23, the Biogas pilot project was funded by the IMF to help the Mercy Project to move away from burning wood for energy. Instead, the biogas initiative overseen by the Mercy Board helped to develop a new energy efficient plan for cooking on campus. The biogas equipment takes cow manure and processes it into gas that is used for cooking and provides an energy efficient pilot program.   Farm managers were trained on how to use the equipment on site with Mercy Board members present to discuss and monitor the ongoing initiatives.  This project was estimated to save the school approximately 10k in energy bills.

Throughout this process, ongoing technical advice, training, equipment, raw materials and assistance in marketing finished products is being sought through local and international communities. Moving the campus towards full energy efficiency, the Solar Panels were purchased in 2022 in order to provide heat and electricity for the campus. Solar Panels were purchased with support from Mercy donations to complete this on site program.  The Solar initiative saves the school a significant amount over time allowing them to channel needed funds to support the students' needs on campus.

Mercy Sunflower Oil Production Comes to Kenya in 2023-2024

In taking ownership of the future, the Mercy Project provides open training in farm management and slow food programs that help demonstrate and share new ideas and techniques with the local farming community and families that make up the Mercy Project community in Lare, Kenya. Supporting the formation of a local farmers' cooperative in Kenya was a main goal of our efforts to try to assist marginalized farmers to gain new crops and income. In 2024, the Mercy Project with assistance from the Mercy farmers' Cooperative in Lare and consultants in Kenya, undertook a pilot Sunflower Oil Project. This is a major undertaking for 2024 as we asked local farmers to grow and raise sunflowers and sell them back to the Mercy Project. Then, with new technology acquired this year, and the building of a sunflower oil facility, the sunflowers are now being manufactured with new technology to yield sunflower oil, seeds for animal feed and also sunflower baked goods and soaps.  All of these products are for sale to the public. These products have just begun to yield profit and a new income stream for the school that will help to put the Mercy Secondary School on a trajectory towards self-sustainability within a projected five years.

Support for the sunflower project and oversight was provided through very generous private donors and supporters. Mercy Board member Kathy Troxell traveled to Kenya in Jan/Feb. 2024 with Sr. Rose Kuria to oversee the installation and groundbreaking initiative and to meet with the project teams there working hard to bring the project to full success.
 
Click here to contact us.