Kenya has a very scenic landscape! Born and raised in the lush green tea bushes in Nandi Hills, birds chirping away and the landscape teeming with wildlife and being an outdoor full of energy young boy, Victor fell in love with forests. Every tea estate is mandated by the law in Kenya to conserve a certain percentage of indigenous trees, native to the eco-zone. That is where Victor’s love for indigenous trees started.
His philanthropic passion was stirred by extreme poverty of tea pluckers of the late 70s and early 80s who lived in deplorable housing conditions and lacked basic amenities like decent toilets and bathrooms. “Many times I would carry bread or mandazi from home, well wrapped in a paper bag and share with my classmates who only had bread once in a year if they were lucky on Christmas Day yet the management team lived in well manicured gardens, large compounds, huge countryside homes overlooking natural water dams, a couple of domestic workers and a common golf course and clubhouse at their disposal for FREE”
Raised by parents who were teachers in the local tea estate school where Victor attended, cases of malnutrition and lack of a decent meal for the tea pluckers’ was more of a norm than an exception. Sometimes, a kid would pass out in class because of hunger.
In 2013, Victor took a sabbatical from his Logistics profession having worked with some of the world’s largest freight and logistics companies to settle on their farm in Western Kenya and pursue his call…environmental conservation using bamboo. In 2012 with like minded bamboo farmers in Kenya, Kenya Bamboo Pioneers Network was formed which was later renamed Bamboo Association of Kenya.
Victor is the current Chairman of the Bamboo Association of Kenya (BAK) with more than 12 years experience in planting and growing trees in Kenya. Between June 2020 and October 2021 he helped to establish a leading global reforestation organization, and spearheaded the planting of 28 million trees in Kenya resulting in employment of 828 community members on a one year renewable contract basis and 4,000 casual jobs.
In his spare time, he provides professional guidance to Bamboo Farming in Kenya for Environmental Conservation and for Commercialization with an aim of gaining access to use of bamboo for climate change adaptation and mitigation whilst generating revenue for households through sale of raw bamboo culms and value addition.
“My strongest skill set is converting reliance on third parties to manage, run and implement projects on behalf of an organization to having an organization set up its own lean, effective, efficient and cost saving operation that ensures that the most deserving poor rural community members living near, adjacent or around a forest are the main beneficiaries and that partners / donor funds are returning more trees grown. Additionally, I can commit that we can plant a tree to maturity in Kenya at a cost of $ 0.50 from rearing the seedling to planting, growing ,monitoring and evaluating to a healthy forest. The trick lies in landscape size reforestation projects averaging a minimum 1,000 hectares for both terrestrial and mangrove forest.”