Dreams are Y2K!
Dreams are Y2K. Yours to Keep, or Yours to Kill. Eleanor Roosevelt said, ‘‘the future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams’’. I thank God I believed in these statements earlier enough, while still very young. I believed in a better future not only for myself, but for those around me, and for those around the world that are poor and hopeless, those that God will privilege me to impact through my work. Maybe because of the extremely harsh living conditions that life subjected me to, I grew up hating poverty with a lot of passion. I don’t like seeing anyone suffer, for I understand that better.
As a young boy from a very poor family, I had to work during school holidays, picking mangoes for a fruit exporting company in order to make ends meet. Having worked with a fruit exporting company, I witnessed firsthand, how poor, rural smallholder farmers are exploited by middlemen, and their products graded at the point of exit, leaving them with a lot of rejects which end up flooding the local markets and rotting, just because they don’t meet the required international standards.
It was therefore my Childhood dream and passion, that one day, when I grow up, I will start an organization that will help farmers to eliminate their farm wastage, losses, and increase their incomes, thus reducing poverty levels within my community. I however procrastinated starting my venture for more than 10 years, in the wrong believe that I needed more than USD 100,000 to start and successfully run my venture. But I was damn wrong! In the year 2014, I was still serving as an elected National Youth Leader in Kenya, and I got the privilege to be selected to participate in former US President Barack Obama’s Mandela Washington Fellowship program, also known as the Young African Leaders Initiative, YALI. While in attendance for the program at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, where I attended the Civic Leadership Institute, under the best tutelage of Dr. Ronald Quincy, the lead Professor in charge of the program at Rutgers, I made friendship with Fellows from other participating Countries, and one of them was Kalule Brian Kasule.
Brian stumbled upon a business accelerator opportunity online, but his Country, Uganda, was not eligible for participation, and he chose to share the opportunity with me through a facebook message. It was the Spark International accelerator, now the impact arm of YGAP, an Accelerator program that supports local impact entrepreneurs to solve the world’s most pressing social challenges in Kenya and South Africa. It was Spark International CEO, Mr. Aaron Tait, who sat down with me, having applied for the program using a Construction business idea for descent housing for low income earners, and he advised me to follow my passion. I quickly remembered my childhood passion and dream, that of empowering rural smallholder farmers! With approval from Aaron, I immediately changed plans, consulted with him further, and I formed Mucho Mangoes Ltd, an organization that is dedicated to empowering rural smallholder farmers to mass produce better quality products, then we provide them with a ready and reliable market for their produce.
We mobilize farmers and empower them by providing them with free training on pre and post-harvest handling skills, Crop Pests and Diseases Control, linking them to agricultural finance and farm inputs, supporting them in production, then providing a market for their produce by buying their mangoes at a good price and selling to international food distributors at very competitive prices! We are also integrating farmers into ICT by providing them Computers, Internet enabled phones and Internet skills training, using a mobile ICT Centre, and we also plan to start drying the mangoes using solar dryers before the end of the year 2017.
In contrast to my earlier believe that I needed more than USD 100,000 to start my venture, Spark International just offered a small grant of 250 Australian Dollars, at that time an equivalent of around USD 160, and I matched the small grant with my personal savings to pay for legal fees and register my organization. From such a humble beginning, there has never been a turning back for Mucho Mangoes. We have so far directly impacted at least 292 farmers, and we intend to reach and impact at least 5000 farmers by the year 2020.
I believe in a World where rural smallholder farmer’s lead successful lives, out of poverty, and at Mucho Mangoes Ltd, we have made it our business to empower rural smallholder farmers to enable them to provide better livelihoods for their families. We are helping them to produce the best, high quality, healthy food for our world, while at the same time making their lives better, and farming, worthwhile!
I thank God, the Creator of the Holy Heavens and the Earth, for giving me this challenge as a young boy, and from a casual child labor on mango farms, to now the founder of Mucho Mangoes! My dream was all along valid! And I kept it!
This small beginnings, with concerted efforts, and an undying spirit and passion for people and community development, has eventually landed me a spot at the UNLEASH Innovation LAB 2017, a global innovation lab that brings together people from all over the world to transform 1,000 personal insights into hundreds of ideas, and build lasting global networks around the Sustainable Development Goals. I will be attending the UNLEASH Innovation LAB in Denmark, this mid-August 2017, and I believe that With UNLEASH, we are on our highway to making the World a better place for all! Cheers!
About the Author
Didas Mzirai is the founder and CEO of Mucho Mangoes, an organization that empowers rural smallholder farmers in Kenya to produce better quality products, then provide a ready and reliable market for their produce. Prior to this, Didas served as President of the National Youth Bunge Association, under the Yes Youth Can program, which is the largest Youth Network in Kenya, and He is a 2014 Mandela Washington Fellow in former US President Barack Obama’s Young African Leaders Initiative, YALI. He also Champions Peace as a Generation Change Fellow, which is a program of the United States Institute of Peace where he is a trainer of trainers in Leadership and Conflict Management.
