Blind students set sights on leather technology

The World Health Organisation (WHO) data shows that there are more than 39 million blind people worldwide. Up to 224,000 of them are Kenyans.

Somewhere in Machakos, 10 of these individuals have a story of focus and achievement to tell despite the disability.

The 10 are entrepreneurs making leather items, but which skill has also given them a strong step onto the global arena, touring countries like the United States, Zambia and Ethiopia for trade exhibitions sponsored by the government.

At the Machakos Technical Institute for the Blind, the 10 produce the items under the brand name Escon Leather Creations, working alongside two sighted colleagues.

Esther Nzau, a lecturer at the college for 13 years, is the brains behind Escon Leather, which she started as a hobby.

“We started making leather creations in order to create employment for students who are not easily absorbed by the leather industry due to their visual challenges,” said Ms Nzau, the head of Leather Technology department.

Early this year, she hired a tanning facility from a local church and employed two of her graduates as artisans.

She currently works with the 10, where only one is female.  She explains: “The work is labour-intensive and messy. Some women are sceptical about it, hence the gender disparity.”

Eliud Kinyua, 20, joined the institute in June, with the hopes of learning how to move around after losing his sight in a road accident.

He was 16 years old when the motorbike accident left him blind. But his dreams of becoming an engineer remained intact.  

“I wanted to be a technical person, an engineer to be precise, when I grow up. With what we are doing at this facility, I have given myself hope that I can still be what I want to become,” Mr Kinyua told Enterprise.

Mr Kinyua’s day at the facility involves tanning, a process that took him three months to master.

Raw hide is soaked in water for three days to remove waste, it is limed to remove fur, then delimed to remove the saltiness of the raw leather before chroming.

“I encourage others in the same situation as I am to come and learn from us instead of waiting for aid. From what I have learnt, I can start my own business when I leave school,” he said.

They make a range of leather items like handbags, sandals, shoes, belts, wallets, and finish sisal baskets made by women groups.  The big handbags go for Sh7,000, medium sized one retail at Sh5,500, small ones are sold at 3,800. men’s wallets sell for Sh2,500 while the sandals are between Sh850 and Sh1,200.

The prices depend on the amount of leather used, the lecturer explained. They sell more than 50 assorted items monthly.

Raw skins can be got from slaughter houses, butcheries and from hides and skins traders.
What these enterprising students lack in eyesight, they compensate in being “perfect at feeling the texture of the leather, ensuring quality and soft raw material for production,” Ms Nzau said.

“They have a very high sense of touch, they do not see but they feel, so I teach them through touch,” she explained.

They have learned to tell the different skin textures to determine when the tanning process is complete. After tanning, the next step is dyeing.

For handcraft, the students have learned how stitch. “Once I or the sighted students make the holes, they can feel them and stitch through them seamlessly,” she said.

The Society for the Blind and the National Council for Persons with Disability supply the trainees with tolls and set up materials once they are graduate.

For each leather item they produce, they are paid up to Sh1,500 in addition to the Sh300 which they receive for every two-hour session of raw stock fleshing. 

“I intend to set up a cottage industry to produce leather products at low costs especially for Kenyans to afford as I experienced in Ethiopia. In the long run I will be creating employment for individuals living with blindness,” said Ms Nzau.

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