In 2008, Dickson Mazinga was a chef in a five-star hotel in the Kenyan coastal town of Watamu. He quit his job to join with young people from Dabaso village on the outskirts of Watamu to protect the mangrove forest.?
The mangrove forest was disappearing as people harvested logs to build their houses. And today, Mazinga is running a top high-end restaurant that hangs on top of mangrove trees, well known as the top absorber of carbon dioxide among all trees in the world.?
Mazinga is a founder member of a group of 47 young people in Dabaso village that started as a volunteer youth group who were concerned with the destruction of the mangrove forest that have been flourishing on the shores of the Indian Ocean. Their campaign was to educate the villagers on the critical role the mangrove played in providing habitat for marine life, especially at breeding stages.?
"We volunteered for seven years, and some of our partners from Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) asked us to initiate a project that would generate income or else our members would get tired and look for employment elsewhere to eek a living," said Mizinga.
He said KAMFRI showed them how crabs breed under the mangrove. He said his group was surprised to find the different marine life that leave the main ocean to come to hide from predators under the mangrove trees during their breeding season.?
"They showed us how to harvest baby crabs and to grow them for the market. They helped us build suitable cages under the mangrove to start our crab farm. As soon as we started, we had a ready market in hotels in the coastal town," said Mizinga.
He said his youth group was amazed at local hotels' demand for crab meat, which led them to explore opening their own restaurant and selling their product. With his experience and other hotel business members, the group was confident that they could operate a restaurant. And they did.
They named their restaurant Crabshack, which started with a modest capacity of serving only 10 people daily. Today they are serving 1000 people per day during high season and 500 people on a bad day racking in millions of Shillings. At the time of press the group was earning $30,000 per month. They employ 42 staff from their village, some of which are founding members of the youth group.?
Asked how Crabshack has helped the youth in his village, Mazinga, who is the general manager of the restaurant and the elected organizing secretary, was very quick to mention that staff are sending their children to school comfortably. But he said he had benefitted and achieved what he could not dream of while working as a chef at five-star hotels.
"I used to leave my house at 5 am and come home after 10 pm every day, and I lived in a house made of mud. I used to struggle to send my kids to local schools. "I live in my dream house made of bricks; please come and see what I have done for myself," said Mazinga, a proud owner of a home 300 meters from Crabshack Restaurant.?
贰苍诲…
