Minors raking in cash from random skills
Roy Lumbe @lumbe_royAgnistio
It is 2pm and a group of children gather at an open field where they have assembled bottle top seals of assorted colours.
To a casual observer, the children are whiling time away after spending the morning helping parents with domestic chores and reading.
However, what they are doing is no child’s play. After being at home for almost three months after schools were abruptly shut following the Covid-19 outbreak, these group of children from Ahero area within Bahati, Nakuru County are utulising their free time to eke out a living by making ropes from bottle tops and other decorations.
As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and the children aged between 10 and 13 are making a killing out of an investment that eventually puts food on their families’ table.
The group of 12 spends their free time to collect bottle top seals from area dumpsites, which can be used as decorations in homes and as skipping ropes for children.
Francis Karimi, a Class Seven pupil said disruption of learning by the Covid-19 pandemic brought about the need to become innovative while at home. The children spend a huge chunk of time making the decorations.
Theirs is an objective to turn waste into gold and to keep themselves busy and in the process keeping the environment clean.
“After completing our daily routine home studies, we meet up and go to Ahero dump site where we collect bottles top seals and place them in water before bending the same and intertwining them to make a rope.
After the process, we leave them to dry before placing them back to the water to ensure it is firm before selling or using the same in home sports,” said Karimi.
Beckham Muiruri, another upcoming innovator, said they are also making key holders, adding that it takes around an hour to make a two-metre plastic rope cashing in as much as Sh150 for one piece.
Muiruri says they have invented the best way to while away time. The activities also keeps them busy that they barely have time to roam around. He is urging his peers countrywide, who have free time to engage in such innovations to help keep them away from vices.
The young talented boys will be seeking to recruit more children from the area to make them busy and occupied.
“When we get the cash, we are able to assist our families in buying basic necessities such as food and clothing,” said Muiruri.
Joseph Karanja from LSTL Foundation said they were impressed with the inventions and pledged to support the children through buying of the ropes and key holders.
Karanja has appealed to the Government to safeguard such talents, saying with schools closed such projects will keep the learners busy at home and also exploit their talents.
“This idea is encouraging and I can tell you these young people cannot engage in vices because their minds are busy,” said Karanja.
