Banana Fiber

The banana fibre products are popular for their household utility use. These are items like laundry basket, office waste paper basket, and fruit or egg trays. There are also banana fibre products that serve as house deco. These are art scenes depicting African culture, animals, and nativity products. Of late, the Kikuyu ethnic women community from central province have introduced Banana fiber "Kiondo" basket. Unlike the sisal baskets, the banana fibre "kiondo" do not need any colouring. As for the hand woven banana fibre basketry, the producers are based in Central and western province and even in slum areas. 90% of banana fibre basketry producers are middle-aged women who make the banana basketry to supplement their sources of income. It is also an activity that instills a sense of belonging and security. Most of the producers lifetime dream is to educate their children and acquire or build a better house which has a security of tenure. Like in most slum areas, a majority of the women take both the role of the bread earner and house head. There are many reasons behind it such as having been widowed, divorced or even migrated from rural areas in search of greener pastures in Nairobi just to find themselves in the slum life. Traditionally unlike men, women do not have property right or inherit from their place of origin thus rural land. Therefore their best alternative is to adapt to urban slum life where basic social amenities are not only lacking but inadequate to serve the usually high population of maginalized citizens. The problems that face the slum community and their rural counterpart is poverty and unemployment. Many of the slum dwellers rely on unreliable source of income such as temporary construction work while their women combine their respective source of income with child rearing among other household chores. In order to fight the odds against them, women unlike men have formed their own Banana fibre groups. The common objective is to work as a team as a way of seeking recognition and to empower the group members. This is realised through networking with the powers that be. These women slum groups, source the banana fibre raw material from the rural areas where banana plant is grown. The fibre are collected from the garden while dry and later softened by soaking the fibre overnight before usage.