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TSOS Vocational Training and Production Centre Nairobi has spawned a number of woodworking partnerships supplying high quality furniture to the residents of Nairobi.
Giving birth to a new generation of woodworkers
It’s the end of busy day in Nairobi and Fritz Bachlechner, construction advisor to SOS Children’s Villages East Africa, is crossing town to visit a customer of the Nairobi based SOS Vocational Training Centre (VTC). The SOS Vocational Training Centre trains young people in various skills including wood and metal work. For 22 years Fritz worked at the centre, as a woodwork teacher, teacher trainer, production manager and technical advisor and laid down the high standards for which the centre is now well known.
The reason Fritz is visiting this customer today (let’s call her Sylvia) is because he wants to see the end result of a staircase undertaken by one of the latest ‘babies’ to come out of the production centre – Timberlike Furniture. Sylvia lives in a large old house in a wealthy part of town and welcomes Fritz warmly, delighted that he has come to view the work. She is also delighted with the result. She goes on to show him other work undertaken by carpenters who were trained at the SOS VTC but who now operate independently.
The work is impressive
The work is mostly fittings, such as wardrobes, cupboards, wood panelling, flooring etc. and with its smooth joints and elegant lines, it is very impressive. It’s hard to believe in fact, that this quality of work came from Nairobi’s Eastlands, a densely populated area where open space is almost non-existent as a growing population struggles to survive. There could not be a greater contrast between this beautifully furnished house looking onto manicured lawns and a forest, to the concrete dwellings of Eastands where whole families live in one room, trees are a rare sight and clean water is a luxury. But it is in the depths of Eastlands that 12 former SOS VTC woodworking students have set up their own workshop.
An audacious partnership
Earlier in the day Fritz had visited this workshop. In this building six different joinery companies share both the space and the heavy duty machines, five of them run by ex SOS VTC students. The biggest partnership is AWATT (Audacious Woodwork Association of Technicians & Trainers) consisting of five men, all of whom trained at the SOS VTC and then went on to work in the production centre. Sylvia is one of their customers.
One of the AWATT partners, Gibson Muraya, trained as a joiner between 1989 and 1992. After finishing his training he joined the SOS production unit, became foreman, and then a draftsman. In 2001 Muraya went to work in Somaliland making doors and windows for the new SOS Hermann Gmeiner Sheikh Secondary School and then to Mogadishu to assist in refurbishing the SOS Children’s Village. After a stint in Rwanda as the production foreman overseeing 80 workers he is now back in Nairobi with the AWATT partnership.
Passing on skills and generating income
There are four more businesses located in the workshop formed by seven other men all trained at the SOS VTC. All in all, these 12 ex-students employ another nine people between them and are thus passing on their skills and high standards to others. They are also assisting people to generate an income and helping families to survive in very harsh conditions.
The workshop is limited in that it has a very small area for storing wood and it is spread over two floors. The heavy duty saws, sanders and planers are downstairs and all the timber goes through these machines before it is hand crafted into the furniture and fittings that adorn many upmarket homes. But these men are not just skilled craftsmen – they have also received entrepreneurship training and are very aware that bad business skills could ruin them. Sylvia was particularly impressed by the transparency and honesty of AWATT who showed her in great detail how each job is priced. “We give good service, good quality and we always keep our promises,” claimed Cornelius Mbithi, an AWATT partner.
Products speak for themselves
While Fritz was at the workshop, an instructor from the SOS VTC arrived looking for temporary work placements for some of his students who need industrial attachment. It is important that these students maintain the high standards that they have learnt at the VTC so the choice of firms is limited.
“We want them to be exposed to products in the market and to improve their skills, said the instructor, Stephen Kimani, “and these products speak for themselves – they are very high quality.” Indeed, all of the firms run by SOS trained men take pride in their high standards, which they claim are at least as high as those in the SOS production centre.
Another workshop maintains SOS standards
From this workshop Fritz goes on to visit another one to which SOS customers are referred, this one run by a former SOS VTC teacher. David Githecha taught at the SOS VTC for seven years before joining an NGO which was buying products from the SOS production centre. Two years ago he started his own business renting an already equipped training centre from an organisation that once taught joinery. His foreman is a former SOS student and needless to say the standards are high.
Fritz is rightly proud of the ‘babies’ that the SOS VTC has given birth to. “These workshops with many craftsmen” he commented, “who can feed young families honestly and with pride, are my big satisfaction of my long stay in Kenya.
“Through the constant training over a long period of time, I was able to leave a lasting impression on the field of cabinet making in Kenya. These workshops are the proof that some higher level of quality has been achieved and will be passed on to the next generation of craftsmen.”
Better to water a few trees which survive
Fritz works on a basic principle that it is better, with only one bucket of water, to water a few trees that will grow strong and healthy and bear fruit, than watering hundreds that will not survive. “Now I can see that this was the right decision”, he concluded. “The trees I watered are bearing healthy, juicy fruits”.
With a seemingly endless customer base willing to pay for the high standards that SOS trainees produce, these companies can only grow. As business expands so too do the high standards that the SOS VTC demands of anyone it trains. Perhaps, even more important, as the population of Nairobi grows and jobs are harder to get, the SOS woodwork ‘babies’ are giving jobs and training to others and thus enabling young people to start their grown-up lives in a positive and productive way so that they can support their families now and in the future.
The SOS Vocational Training and Production Centre Nairobi has spawned a number of woodworking partnerships supplying high quality furniture to the residents of Nairobi.
Giving birth to a new generation of woodworkers
It’s the end of busy day in Nairobi and Fritz Bachlechner, construction advisor to SOS Children’s Villages East Africa, is crossing town to visit a customer of the Nairobi based SOS Vocational Training Centre (VTC). The SOS Vocational Training Centre trains young people in various skills including wood and metal work. For 22 years Fritz worked at the centre, as a woodwork teacher, teacher trainer, production manager and technical advisor and laid down the high standards for which the centre is now well known.
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