Cassava & Community with Oluwakemi Oluwasegun

Cassava & Community - Episode 74 - Oluwakemi is changing the face of sustainability in her Nigerian community with cassava and kindness, and she's looking for support.

Oluwakemi Oluwasegun (“Kemi”) lives in the quiet and peaceful community of Ila Orangun, Nigeria.  Kemi happens to be one of the most genuine and kind people that I have met.  She has not had an easy life, yet grounded in God, she’s constantly thinking about how she can help other people.  She discussed three projects with us in this episode: her cassava factory and potential cassava farm (Winners Food Processing), reusable pads for the girls in her community, and donations of physical goods to help local orphanages with the Oluwadabira Foundation.

Investing in or supporting Kemi’s projects is simple.  She’s looking for people who can donate money, clothing, shoes, bags, books, etc. that will keep her projects afloat.  If we can’t support her directly, we can share her work with those around us.  We never know who may be able to help.

Kemi brings a perspective that I could not help but learn from and feel inspired by.  She urges us to lead with kindness and after listening to the conversation I think you’ll feel inspired to do exactly that.  Although this episode began with the idea of introducing cassava flour to those of us who eat vegan and gluten free, it became a window into the life of someone who we can all admire and learn from.

Listen to the episode:

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The Cassava Factory & Potential Cassava Farm:

Kemi started Winners Food Processing cassava factory to support women in her neighborhood.  She noticed that quite a few cassava farms existed around them, and because she had learned how to work with cassava as a child she had the courage to take on modernizing the process.  She ran the farm until cassava became too scarce and expensive to purchase.

Cassava is growing in popularity around the world because it is gluten free, grain free, and nut free.  It’s a root vegetable that can be processed into garri (cassava flour), tapioca, animal feed, and even the leaves are edible and packed with nutrients.  The price of cassava has skyrocketed and Kemi is no longer able to buy the supply needed to run her factory.

She has friends and colleagues in the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture who may be able to help her get the improved variety of cassava stems for her farm.  If so, she could grow cassava in half of the time of traditional farms and feed that directly into her factory.  She needs funding to get the farm going, which costs about $3000 US (#2,500,000) at the time of this recording.

Detailed breakdown of that cost in Nigerian Naira:

  • Land lease – #100,000 per hectare x 5 = #500,000
  • Farm implements – #250,000
  • Land Preparations – #200,000
  • Cassava Stems – #200,000
  • Planting – #350,000
  • Weed Control : Chemicals/water/knapsacks/ sprayers.   – #300,000
  • Harvesting – #200,000
  • Transport to and from the farm and miscellaneous – #500,000

Cassava takes about one year to reach maturity of harvest. On 1 hectare, they project harvesting approximately 17 truck loads of tubers x 5 (hectares) = 85 truck loads of cassava tubers. This however depends on the number of hectares they have planted.  Price value of 1 truck load of cassava is #120,000 (or $158 US at time of recording).

The factory costs about #48,000 ($63 US at time of recording) per annum to rent from the Nigerian government.

The Reusable Pads Project:

After relocating to Ila Orangun, Kemi noticed many girls from the age of about 12 upwards don’t go to school for about 5 days in a month. She was told that this is because they are on their periods and don’t have the money for disposable pads.  They use clothes which are not hygienic and comfortable to walk with so they’re asked to stay home.

Kemi is passionate about education and this prompted her to start looking for ways to help.  Disposable pads are expensive and reusable pads are an awesome invention for young girls in Africa whose parents cannot afford disposable pads, not to mention significantly better for the environment!

Kemi hopes to educate and eradicate the lifestyle of wearing unhygienic clothing rather than pads during this time of the month.  She turned to YouTube and taught herself how to make reusable pads, and she would like to teach girls in her community how to do it as well.

For the project, each girl will need at least 8 – 10 reusable pads for comfort and cleanliness. When one or two is washed and sun-dried, she will have 6 – 8 left to use.  They will have them in 3 sizes for the comfort of each girl: 7 inches, 9 inches and 11 inches.  They use buttons or plasters to fix the pads to the panties.

This project needs the following supplies:

  • 2 industrial overlocking machines
  • 2 or 3 single machines
  • 1 or 2 button fixing machines
  • Real cotton material
  • Pad linings
  • Nylon cloth
  • Buttons/plaster

Estimated start up costs are $2,500 US.  Each pad will cost about $1 – 1.50 US to make.  The project will empower 3-5 women to be trained for free by Kemi and work for the project after training.  The goal is to pay them for their work after training.

The Oluwadabira Foundation:

The Oluwadabira Foundation was birthed by the loss of one of Kemi’s daughters, Oluwadabira Oluwasegun, on the 20th of April, 2021 at the tender age of 16 as a result of medical negligence in Nigeria.

Kemi and her daughter were referred from a private hospital in Ila Orangun, Osun State to Osun State University Teaching Hospital (OSUTH) where they spent days without any improvement in her condition.  She was supposed to be on I.C.U. life support, but it was occupied at the time.  They were referred to University of Ife Teaching Hospital where she was rejected for lack of space and oxygen.  They rushed her to Seventh Day Adventist Hospital and were rejected again for same reasons. She gave up on their way to another private hospital in Ile-Ife, Osun State.

Kemi packed all her clothing and decided to give it to children who needed it at the nearest orphanage in Osogbo.  By doing this, she honored Oluwadabira’s passion for giving like her mom.

This was Kemi’s first experience at an orphanage, and it opened her eyes to the numerous needs of the children there.  She started the foundation and is gathering clothes, shoes, toys, bags, money for feeding and educational materials for each of the following sections:

  • Newborn to toddlers – 0-3 years
  • Toddlers – 3-5 years
  • Children – 5-12 years
  • Teenagers – 13-19 years

To donate goods to the Oluwadabira Foundation, we need to basically follow the process of shipping a package.  Here are the general steps:

  1. Email Kemi to get her address
  2. Decide who you will use to ship the box.  When I looked into this, it was very expensive to send a box.  The cheapest options I found were about $50 for a 6 pound 12 in x 12 in x 4 in box.  You can calculate the size of your box to see what it would cost at Package Hopper or Parcel Monkey.
  3. Ship Bob has some advice for shipping to Nigeria from the US that you can follow, especially as it relates to customs.
  4. I decided to send the money that it would cost me to ship instead.  Kemi was able to use it to purchase clothes, food, and other needed supplies there in Nigeria and take them to the orphanage.  I used SendWave for this and it worked like a charm.
  5. Feel free to add any hints to the comments below that will help others with this process.

Contact Kemi at oluwakemioluwasegun@yahoo.com or by phone at +234 70 6097 2220 for the address details.

Watch the episode:

Closed captioning transcript included in video.  Subscribe on YouTube.

3 Simple Ideas From This Episode:

1. BE KIND.  Kemi urges us to think GIGO (Garbage in. Garbage out.) in the way that we show kindness in the world.  If we lead with kindness in all situations, we are likely to receive kindness from others.

2. DONATE. Consider sending money, clothing, shoes, bags, books, or other educational materials to Kemi to give away as part of the Owadabira Foundation.  Email her at oluwakemioluwasegun@yahoo.com

3. SHARE WITH INVESTORS.  Kemi needs funding to restart her cassava factory, plant her own cassava, purchase sewing machines for her reusable pad project, or purchase goods for her foundation.  Consider sending a donation or sharing this episode/blog post.

About Oluwakemi Oluwasegun:

Cassava & Community - Episode 74 - Oluwakemi is changing the face of sustainability in her Nigerian community with cassava and kindness, and she's looking for support.

Oluwakemi Oluwasegun (“Kemi”) is an entrepreneur who is guided by her heart and God in the projects she does.  She studied computers at a college in Akure, Nigeria that is affiliated with City and Guilds of London.  She worked with the IITA (International Institute for Tropical Agriculture) for 9 years.  She married, relocated and started working with her husband as a Minister of God in a Church.  She is passionate about helping people.

Kemi started the cassava factory in 2018 to help the less privileged women in her community, with little profit to keep it running.  At full capacity, she has at least 10 women working on each production, some bring their children too, to increase their take home each day.

Connect with Kemi:

Email: oluwakemioluwasegun@yahoo.com

Phone: +234 70 6097 2220

Instagram: www.instagram.com/Kemi4Real

Facebook: www.facebook.com/Oluwakemi.Oluwasegun

Linked In: @Oluwakemi Oluwasegun

Twitter / X: Twitter.com/Kemi4Real

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