Bettering lives in Kenya with ActionAid

Kenyan tea has long been one of the most important parts of our blends. We’ve been visiting this beautiful country for many years, building projects and relationships with our partners and tea farmers.

Much of the tea we buy from Kenya comes from smallholders. These farmers and informal workers play a vital role in the international tea supply chain. But the informal nature of their employment means they are more likely to face low incomes, poor working conditions, and lack access to essential public services such as clean water, safe housing, healthcare, and education.

Women working in tea

Women are especially exposed to these challenges. Most informal workers are young, landless women, many of whom are economic migrants from other regions who move to tea growing areas in search of jobs. The absence of formal contracts and the seasonality of available work leads to a lack of job security, living incomes and access to basic services and entitlements. Women working in this area are also more at risk of violence. They are largely ​‘invisible’ in the international tea supply chain and their rights, both as workers and as citizens, are therefore overlooked. They are one of the most vulnerable groups in the tea industry. 

We’re collaborating with ActionAid, the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP) and Lavazza to empower tea farming communities in Kenya. ActionAid will work on the ground with the ETP to understand the wide range of challenges that affect smallholder tea farmers and workers – especially the most marginalised. They will empower workers to understand their rights to a positive working environment, freedom from violence and access to services, and mobilise to claim them.

About ActionAid’s Human Rights Based Approach

ActionAid is an international charity that is dedicated to working with women and girls living in poverty. 

Their human rights-based approach means that local people are the drivers of their own change and can claim the rights they are entitled to, regardless of where they are born.

They work closely with local people to empower them to understand their rights, and they are committed to increasing the accountability of key players who are responsible for protecting and fulfilling these rights. 

A human-rights-based approach means combining change at the local level with policy action. For people to claim their rights, we need to change the policies and practices that make people poor. 

“ActionAid has helped me a lot. I’m now fully confident of my rights.”

Viona’s Story

Viona is a paralegal in Nyarongi, Kenya. Before ActionAid arrived, cases of assaults were widespread in her village. ​“There were many cases that were kept under wraps,” Viona explains. ​“No one would take action against the culprits because villagers didn’t even know cases should be reported.” Supported by ActionAid, Viona trained as a human rights defender. One of her success stories has been the case of a woman assaulted in a dispute over land. Viona accompanied the woman to the police station, ensured a complaint was lodged and supported her as the case progressed through court. The man who perpetrated the assault was jailed. As well as helping bring perpetrators to justice, the training she has received has changed Viona’s life for the better. 

Our Partnership

Through this partnership we will establish 45 Solidarity groups across three of our supplier communities. These Solidarity groups will be made up of smallholder farmers and workers and through them we’ll be able to train 1,350 Rights Champions, 80% of whom will be women. These Rights Champions will help improve the lives of 22,000 farmers and workers and their families. 

Through our partnership we will:

Enable access to better working conditions and pay:

  • Work to put better policies in place across the tea sector to ensure fair pay and conditions for farmers and workers 
  • Establish a platform for dialogue with key industry and government stakeholders so that farmers and workers can raise issues and concerns and plan together to make improvements.
  • Support Groups with training and skills so that they can hold local governments accountable for their commitments to provide essential public services including water, healthcare and education.

Amplify women’s voices within the industry and tackle the causes of violence towards women:

  • Challenge gender-based violence and support survivors of violence to access essential services and legal aid.
  • Establish a platform for dialogue with local government to advance women’s land rights, which are essential for raising women’s status. 
  • Train tea industry management to improve working practices and tackle gender-based violence. 

Support smallholder farmers and informal workers to diversify their incomes through access to entrepreneurship training and finance.

Together, we will also bring about structural change within the Kenyan tea sector by influencing policy changes that will have a positive impact on approximately 600,000 small-scale farmers and 300,000 informal tea workers in Kenya.