Turning Waste Into Opportunity: Training at the Heart of the Organic Rebirth Project
Across Ruiru and Kikuyu, KEAN International is equipping waste workers with the skills, dignity, and economic tools to lead Kenya's just transition to a circular economy.
Programme Overview
Building a self-sustaining composting movement
A persistent gap in organic waste management is that waste workers are only engaged on an ad-hoc basis — when fertilizer producers need them. When producers don't show up, organic waste washes away. The Organic Rebirth Project was designed to change this entirely.
Technical composting skills
Waste workers trained to troubleshoot wet, dry, and slow-decomposing compost, apply quality assurance through moisture monitoring and turning schedules, and maintain proper curing and record-keeping practices.
Business & profitability training
Participants moved from production to profitability thinking — learning to understand costs, price their fertilizer fairly, identify buyers (farmers, schools, nurseries), and apply basic negotiation and branding skills.
Movement building & advocacy
Kikuyu Youth Waste Pickers were connected to zero waste movements across Africa and climate justice networks, and encouraged to participate in public forums, collectively organize, and advocate for composting in county development plans.
Impact storytelling
Chris from Prince Network Limited trained waste workers to tell their own stories using smartphones and social media — helping them structure narratives around data, story, and evidence to communicate their vital role in the waste management ecosystem.
Environmental Justice
Waste is a justice issue — not just a management problem
"When we are talking about waste, we are not just talking about trash. We are talking about power. We are talking about who benefits and who suffers. And many times, the people who suffer the most are the ones contributing the least to the problem."— Kelvin Bidanya, Programs Director, KEAN International
Why the system must change
Environmental justice asks a fundamental question: why do low-income communities and informal workers always carry the heaviest burden of pollution? The answer demands structural change — not charity.
Kelvin's sessions helped waste workers understand that they are not a problem to be solved. They are essential actors in the transition to a circular economy. Those most affected by waste must sit at the decision-making table.
The Organic Rebirth Project insists on this principle at every step: real solutions are community-led, decentralized, and designed to include — not replace — informal workers.
False vs. Real Solutions
❌ Incineration (false solution)
Produces toxic emissions, destroys recyclable materials, requires centralized investment, and excludes informal workers entirely. If waste is burned, livelihoods disappear.
✓ Decentralized composting (real solution)
Creates local jobs, keeps resources in communities, improves soil health, reduces methane emissions, strengthens food systems, and includes waste workers as leaders — not afterthoughts.
Centering women in the waste-to-wealth transition
Kenya's waste management sector is dominated by men and surrounded by stigma. Women waste workers remain largely invisible — despite their critical role in composting, soil restoration, and community health.
Through the Organic Rebirth Project, women are at the forefront of turning organic waste into nutrient-rich fertilizer that supports regenerative agriculture and local food security. Their work is climate action. Their work is environmental justice.
Barriers we are dismantling:
This year's IWD theme — Rights. Justice. Action. For ALL Women and Girls — reminds us that recognition alone is not enough. We must build better structures and implement policies that make women's leadership in waste management the norm, not the exception.
Sustainable Development Goals
Every pile of compost is a global act
As Kelvin Bidanya emphasized: when you turn a compost pile, you are reducing methane emissions, restoring soil, supporting farmers, fighting inequality, and advancing the global agenda. Waste workers are not peripheral to development — they are central to it.
Safeguarding livelihoods
Protecting the economic security of informal workers as systems change
Recognizing informal workers
Formalizing the contribution of waste pickers in policy and planning
Safer working conditions
PPEs, training, and organizational structures that protect workers
Local green jobs
Composting hubs as engines of circular employment in communities
Voices from the Field
The people driving this change
The Organic Rebirth Project works because it is grounded in expertise at every level — from environmental justice advocacy to agronomic practice and grassroots enterprise training.
Meya Robert
Executive Director, KEAN International — led sessions on circular business models and dignified livelihoods
Kelvin Bidanya
Programs Director — facilitated environmental justice, SDG linkages, and just transition frameworks
Teresia Wairimu
Agronomist, Organic Fields — technical support for composting practice and soil health outcomes
Chris, Prince Network
Impact storytelling trainer — equipping waste workers to share their narratives using digital tools
Support the Work
Help us scale what is working
The Organic Rebirth Project is proving that decentralized composting — built on community knowledge, dignity, and just transition principles — is not just possible. It is already happening. Your partnership can help us reach more workers, more communities, and more counties across Kenya.