The Charcoal Briquette Project
The Maasai-Rianda Women Group are slowly racking up the charcoal briquette production almost towards the pre pandemic period. During the pandemic and lock-down, the charcoal briquette program came to halt as the market became scarce and resources limited with the lock-down put in place by the government. This put a strain on the finances they would have received from the briquettes by selling them to the camp and other interested groups and families nearby.
The production of the briquettes requires a carbonized material that the mamas collect from elephant dung, leaves and twigs thereafter crushing it into a coarse powder. The next step involves mixing the crushed materials together with a binding agent (soil) and mixing the two with water before compressing into the briquette machine.
Later on, the women take them out to be dried. On a good sunny month, the drying process takes a maximum of four to seven days before the briquettes are placed in sacks of approximate of 25 kilograms then sold to consumers. The money they receive supplements the extra money they receive from bead work and harvesting honey. This diversification of income enables the mamas to have a continuous stream of revenue to sustain their families throughout the year.