Rafiki Youth Center

Rafiki was birthed from every day challenges of seeing lost potential among street beggars and unemployed youth, not just in Uganda but East Africa as well.

We decided to make amazing tote bags from the bark of a tree (bark cloth). The special tree called "Mutuba" is currently found in East Africa and South Africa. Products are produced from the bark of the tree that naturally regenerates its bark, therefore preventing deforestation as an alternative. Hopefully, we aim to introduce other products such as fashion-fused linens, wall art and book covers.

Through creating a Rafiki E-commerce platform for online shopping of bark cloth products and infusing technology based raw material production ( Adjusting thickness and creating a leather like material that's Eco-friendly), we hope to reduce the use of non-biodegradable products within the ecosystem and enhance Eco-resilience not just in Africa but around the world as well.

In Kenya, more than 40% of the population comprises of unemployed youth. In addition to Kenya, Sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to contribute to 20% of the global share of population that will be 8.6 billion people by 2030. This means that ocean health will deteriorate tremendously by increased micro plastics in water species. As population rate increases, so does consumerism and production of plastic bags to cater for different population needs. 

By 2018, 1 million plastic bags were produced every minute due to the overwhelming rise in population. This doesn't result in an effective micro-economy as unemployment is rampant with vulnerable livelihood structures.To make matters worse, plastic recycling only ends up within the ecosystem web one way or the other resulting to environmental degradation.

Street beggars and unemployed youth in East Africa are frustrated because they are passionate about driving their country's economy yet such potential goes to waste due to lack of employment or innovation opportunities. For those daring enough to get opportunities within the Middle East region, unfortunately end up being domestic workers, a precarious job that entails work without dignity in most parts of the Arab region.

Rafiki aims to restore such potential by providing livelihood means for the youth to drive the economy of East Africa by producing amazing tote bags. Not only will they gain working skills on production but also, acquire mentor ship sessions and digital skills to improve their ability and potential to become self-innovators well.

We envision ourselves catering for young campus ladies who need durable tote bags for various occasions to artistic lovers who want a bag that speaks for itself regarding art and nature.

Rafiki produces tote bags made from the bark of a tree found in East and South Africa that will serve a wider market inclusive of: art stores, online buyers, supermarkets and museums. We intend to include cutting edge technology in the raw material processing in order to improve thickness and leather like texture based on capital availability.

Mutuba bark cloth is what makes our tote bags unique but also versatile. With cutting edge technology, we may transform the leather industry by producing leather-like bags that are Eco-friendly and 100% biodegradable upon disposal. 

Infusing fashion with wildlife print form Eco-friendly dyes captures a wider market of young youth and bohemian lovers as well.

Rafiki replaces the old fashioned ways of producing a smooth bark cloth using mallets with technology that works on the thickness of the bark cloth to produce different layers of thickness while addressing the issue of standard production. On the other hand, including machinery that works on the bark cloth to produce a leather like product by adjusting the texture of the bark cloth.

Currently we serve a potential of  1000+, we intend to scale up and serve 100,000+ people and hopefully 1,000,000+ in the next 5 years.