The Somali community is traditionally a consumer of camel milk, they prefer camel milk because of its taste and nutritious value and they perceive that it has high energy value that prevents thirst when walking for long distances. Camel milk contributes to food security, livelihoods and resilience because of camel adaptability to harsh environments.
Mama Abdia from Bulla Power village in Mandera town is a member of the Society of Milk seller Women’s Group. She says the members’ milk selling businesses have benefited significantly through this membership. According to her, “Before I joined this Society, I was making a loss of Kshs 300 due to milk contamination”. This loss arose from the fact that milk contamination led to milk becoming sour and the sellers then had to ferment it. The price of fermented milk is lower than that of fresh milk.
Since she has joined the Group and been trained on milk value addition, Mama Abdia has gained new knowledge and skills. She says “I have gained considerable knowledge regarding camel milk practices and I can now handle 50 liters of milk every single day and am making Kshs.500 as my daily profit.”
For years, raw camel milk has served as a traditional curative among the Somali community. Its exceptional nutritional value is said to be similar in composition to human breast milk. Abdia attested to this medicinal value of camel milk by saying “Camel milk can be used to treat diabetes, blood pressure, indigestion and arthritis among other diseases”.
Given her success in the milk business, Mama Abdia has also branched out into vegetable and fruit sales. “Now I can look back and know I will survive this year. I am sure I can get food for my children, send them to school, and buy what they need to acquire a standard education.”
The lack of business skills, financial literacy and proper milk handling hygiene was a clear impediment to Mama Abdia. This continues to be true for most milk traders in Mandera who are not able to meet the needs of their customers in terms of quality and quantity. To respond to this problem, WYG through its Business Development Support Center being established under the BORESHA project will offer a holistic course on business and technical skills training to milk traders. With this kind of training, camel milk production and marketing will become the fulcrum of livelihood enhancing resilience for many other milk sellers in Mandera who can grow to be as successful as Mama Abdia.