In Lungalunga, Conservation under COSME Project Is Becoming a Family Lifeline
By Caroline Katana
The income that once seemed out of reach for members of Okoa Bahari Self Help Group is now helping some of them keep their children in school.
For years, the group raised mangrove seedlings but struggled to find someone to buy them.
Support under Plan International Kenya’s EcoSmart project, implemented under the wider COSME project, has since helped the members turn their conservation work into an income-generating activity, while beekeeping and village savings are giving families additional ways to meet their needs.
Mataka Rajab, the group’s chairman, remembers how difficult it was for members to move their mangrove nursery work forward.
They could plant and raise the seedlings, but finding a buyer or financial support to purchase them remained a challenge.
“Whenever we established a nursery, it was difficult to find someone or a donor to help us buy the mangrove seedlings,” Rajab said.
The situation changed in 2024 when Plan International Kenya began supporting the group.
The organisation bought 5,250 mangrove seedlings, giving the members an opportunity to earn from work they had already been doing.
The money also allowed the group to improve its own operations.
Rajab says they bought 30 chairs and a table after previously having no chairs or basic furniture for their meetings.
But the group was not content to depend on one conservation activity.
Members also turned to beekeeping, an enterprise that had already been practised individually by some of them.
Rajab says he personally had 25 beehives and harvested honey twice in 2025. The two harvests produced about 140 kilograms, which he sold at Sh800 per kilogram.
The experience demonstrated the potential of honey production as another source of income.
In 2026, Plan International provided the group with 79 beehives.
The journey has not been without setbacks. Nine hives that had attracted bees later lost them after the group encountered a pest problem.
Members started again, and by the time of the project closure ceremony held at Kanana in Lungalunga Constituency, 11 of the 79 hives had bees.
The group also received a honey extractor, bee suits and bee smokers.
For Rajab, the equipment has changed both the safety of beekeeping and the way honey is handled.
Previously, members would burn grass to smoke the bees from the hives.
“Some bees would die, while the honey we harvested would have too much smoke,” he said.
The bee smoker now gives members a more controlled way of handling the bees, while the honey extractor means they no longer have to squeeze honey out by hand.
Rajab says the new method will help them produce honey without introducing unnecessary dirt or smoke into it.
But beyond the beehives and mangrove nurseries, the group has another tool that members say has had a direct impact on their households: the Village Savings and Loan Association.
For Rajab, the value of the project can be seen in something as basic as whether a child remains in school.
He says income from selling mangrove seedlings, together with money saved through the VSLA, has helped members meet school expenses when families might otherwise struggle to raise fees.
“Many of us in the coastal communities have difficulties educating our children. But when we sell the seedlings, we get money to take our children to school without being chased for fees,” Rajab said.
The change, he says, is already visible among members' families.
Some children are now in Form Four, while others who have completed secondary school have been taken to college.
“ Those are some of the benefits that have come from Plan,” Rajab said.
The experience in Okoa Bahari is part of a wider effort under EcoSmart to ensure that groups involved in environmental conservation also have the financial capacity to withstand economic and climate-related shocks.
Jenard Mwangangi, Project Coordinator for Conservation and Economic Empowerment at Plan International, said the programme has worked with 153 VSLAs across Kwale and Kilifi counties, with 89 groups in Kwale.
Mwangangi said many conservation groups were already doing environmental work but had not developed strong saving and investment systems.
The project therefore encouraged groups to save and invest so members could have something to fall back on when drought, floods or other effects of climate change disrupted their livelihoods.
“We told all the groups that every group must invest because the savings help when things become difficult,” Mwangangi said.
The model was backed by training and practical VSLA kits, including savings boxes, individual passbooks, stamps, pens and record books for keeping track of weekly savings and loans.
It also introduced a three-lock system intended to strengthen accountability over group money.
Instead of one treasurer controlling the savings box, three different members hold the keys.
The box can only be opened when the required key holders are present.
Mwangangi said the arrangement helped reduce the possibility of members taking loans without the knowledge of the rest of the group.
“The possibility of taking loans without the knowledge of other members ended because the box can only be opened on the meeting day when members are present,” he said.
The savings generated through the groups have also grown substantially.
By the end of the first phase in December, VSLAs in Kwale and Kilifi had invested Sh21.7 million, with Kwale accounting for Sh11 million.
Groups from Majoreni accounted for Sh6.8 million of the Kwale savings.
The project has also supported members with assets aimed at strengthening their resilience.
In Kwale, about 1,200 multipurpose cookstoves were provided.
The stoves use less firewood and can also accommodate charcoal.
Through a collaboration with d.light, 589 solar systems were distributed in Kwale, out of 1,286 distributed across Kwale and Kilifi.
For Okoa Bahari, however, the real test is what happens after external support winds down.
The group has 33 registered members, although 27 are active. Members have agreed that each active member should take responsibility for two beehives.
The idea is to make every member directly responsible for the enterprise instead of allowing a few people to carry the work while others wait to benefit.
“We agreed that every member should take two hives and be responsible for them personally, they should not just wait for someone else to produce so that they can benefit,” Rajab said.
The group has also decided that its success should extend beyond its membership.
Once honey production begins generating income, members plan to set aside 10 per cent to support community needs.
“We cannot fill our pockets, educate our children and leave our neighbours behind. We have agreed that 10 per cent of the income from honey will go towards helping the community,” Rajab said.
For a group that once struggled to find support for the mangrove seedlings it was raising, the ambition has grown considerably.
Its members are now trying to build a cycle in which conservation creates income, income strengthens savings, savings help families through difficult moments, and part of the proceeds eventually goes back into the community.
The project may be approaching its end, but Okoa Bahari members are betting that the skills, assets and savings culture they have acquired can keep the cycle alive.
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