We Cherish Growth
Leading through change
Ever since our inception in 2024, Kakuma Eco-Bag is dedicated to driving inclusive change. We cherish the things we do and take pride in the mark we leave together with our communities, customers, and partners.
Who We Are
We are a team of talented goal-getters who love to drive change for the greater well-being of people and the environment. Kakuma Eco-Bag is a refugee-led social enterprise based in Kakuma, Turkana County, Kenya. We train and work with young people to manufacture and produce eco-friendly packages using khaki paper. All by hand, from recycled materials, right here in the community!
Growth is in Our DNA
Why We Exist
Kakuma faces two big problems that affect each other: youth are unemployed and plastic waste is choking our community. According to UNHCR (2023), more than 75% of youth in Kakuma Refugee Camp are unemployed. At the same time, plastic waste is causing harm to the environment, affecting both health and daily life.
Aid alone can’t solve these problems. The packaging businesses need? It’s shipped in daily from over 1,000 km away in Nairobi. All businesses in Turkana depend on these imports, with packaging costing KES 400 per kg, plus transport. This is almost double the price compared to Nairobi, making it too expensive for many. We saw these problems and thought: What if we could solve both?
That’s why we started Kakuma Eco-Bag. We train local youth with skills and use recycled paper to make eco-friendly packaging. By keeping production local, we make sure the value stays within the community, creating jobs and supporting the local economy.
Our work is about dignity. It’s about showing that with the right tools and trust, people don’t need to be saved; they need space to build.
Who we serve
Our customers are restaurants, shops, schools, health centers, food vendors, local businesses, and many more! They’re getting what they need at prices that work, from people they know, without the environmental cost of plastic or the financial cost of importing from Nairobi.
Our Cooperative Model
Our model couldn’t be any simpler: Train and Integrate, Produce and Earn, Share and Grow. Three core principles that guide us, and everyone wins!
Train & Integrate
Produce & Earn
Share & Grow
What Drives Us
We turn skills into jobs and waste into opportunity.
We don’t just look for opportunities. In a place where opportunities are limited, we support our people to create them.
MISSION
To create jobs and protect the environment using recycled materials and clean energy.
VISION
To become a leading youth-led green business that turns waste into opportunity in Kenya and beyond.
CORE VALUES
We care to help youth build a future that makes our dream for a better world come true.
CULTURE
Our dedicated team boasts such competence that only serves to unite and define us, both inside and outside the workshop.
Our Commitment
Locally Made, Cost-Effective Solutions
We are committed to producing affordable packaging locally, helping businesses reduce costs while keeping value within the community.
Youth Empowerment at the Core
We commit to creating sustainable jobs and skills for refugee and host community youth through hands-on training and fair income opportunities.
Environmental Responsibility
We are committed to eco-friendly production and circular recycling practices that reduce plastic waste and protect the environment.
How Youth Learn, Work, and Grow Together
We don’t train people and send them away. We train them and bring them in. At Kakuma Eco-Bag, our youth join a cooperative model where learning, production, and ownership happen together. Trainees work side by side, earn income, and share profits from what they produce. No one’s working for Kakuma Eco-Bag. We work as Kakuma Eco-Bag. That’s how we’ve built accountability and teamwork and pride. Everyone knows their role. Everyone benefits when quality improves. And everyone has a reason to show up and do the work well.
Meet the A team
Leading with vision and excellence
This is just the BEGINNING
We’re expanding to more towns across Turkana County: Lodwar, Lokichogio, Kalokol, Loropio, and beyond. We’re training more hundreds of youth.
We’re building proper workshops so we can scale without losing what makes this work.
And we’re proving a bigger point: that refugee-led enterprises can compete, that cooperative models can thrive, that you don’t have to choose between profit and purpose.
We’re not trying to be the biggest. We want to be the model that others can follow. Because if this works here, it can work anywhere.