 A very good morning to you and many thanks for keeping it Y254. My name is Karanja Alex. Thanks for keeping it, of course, as always, it's entrepreneurship Tuesday. Barry Moore, of course, has done it, rolled it well. And this morning, I'm joined by a team of people and they are quite amazing. Well, they have made tremendous growth in terms of environment. They are still doing mega trends and they are doing so much for the environment. And with such kind of an introduction, I want to chip in directly. I don't want to introduce anyone. You wear very many hats. I want to begin from Matthew Ochanda. Thank you so very much. We are grateful and glad to be hosted at Y254. My name is Matthew Ochanda. I'm the team leader of Team Environment Kenya. Team Environment Kenya is the National Youth Environment and Conservation Movement. We are the trendsetters in conservation on a mission to keep Kenya breathing through our various environmental and conservation initiatives and activities that we have conducted countries, a countrywide over the past three or four years. And therefore, I am an environmental entrepreneur. Right. So you came through the environment. You went through the environment. Yes. That's what I live to do. It is my passion and I am fulfilled. I can't wait to do it anytime, every time of the day. We will be discussing about being the confound and all that. Yes. Let me come to Felista. Thank you very much for having us. My name is Duta Felista. I am a model and I will be contesting for Mr. and Ms. Environment Kiambo County. Yes. Awesome. Nice to have you here. Yes, thank you. Is it your first time? Yes, it's my first time. How does it feel? Very scary. You're going to really trust me. You're going to enjoy it. Very scary. Then we have Angie. You wear very many hats. I didn't want to mess up with the kind of status that you have. East Africa, you know, being a mom and all that. Just go ahead. Okay. I am glad to be here. My name is Angie Kitem. I am the face of Mr. and Ms. Alvidezi, Mr. Africa 2018-2019. I am an actress. I act basically to just educate people about albinism. My first film is out. I'm also a model. I'm a mom. Yeah. Right. Many thanks to her, Angie Kitem. And I also have my company. Yes. So you're still earning in all angles of this life? Yes. Exactly. You're most welcome, guys, and it's nice to have, of course, on Entrepreneurship Tuesday. Thank you. And you mentioned something about earning through the environment. But before we look from that side, what is Team Kenya all about? Team Environment Kenya? Team Environment Kenya is a consortium, a conglomeration of youth in institutions and out of college agencies and organizations. And individuals who are just passionate and are wanting to make a difference in their various spheres or spaces of influences. And therefore, Team Environment Kenya National, we are the national youth environment. National? Youth environment and conservation movement. We are driven by passion. I have realized that over time, in the environment space, we have a myriad of opportunities that have been explored and exploited, which when we are able to exhaustively and do it well, we should be able to provide opportunities for many youth all around the country to have a decent earning or living by the opportunities that the environment has. And that's what we are out to ensure that we do. We go to counties besides just conservation and environmental management and all. We are about mentorship and admonishing youth to taking up... to conserving the environment. And through schools, to the kids, we are working on and inculcating environmental best practices so that they can live to being responsible of the environment they are in. There's a contest that is coming up next and I feel it is to respond to this. How does it feel now that you are contestant? It's always challenging at first because you know you are competing with so many people to earn a crown. But this is different. I feel like this is different because we are working towards something better, something conserving the environment. I never thought of it like that before I was always competing. Just thinking differently. These are condos that are coming up in Kiambo but still you have been having others. Would you mind to bring us on board with what has been happening in the activities? Thank you so much. Once again, having started this journey three or four years ago, we realized that for us to ensure sustainability of the environmental projects we initiate in various counties. We came up with an idea that has a way of coalescing bringing many use together. This is music, art, talent and beauty as it were. Therefore, we thought around it and we have done it in six or seven counties. We have done Kaka-Mega, we have done Meru, we have done Kajiado Counties, we have done Nairobi Counties and all of these counties we have crown holders. Besides, like she said, these are on a course for a reason. So, just about having crowns, we have many agencies that are doing pageantry for pageantry sake. But we are about conservation. So, in spite of the fact that you might be the best on the runway, that might not be the absolute way for you to earn the crown. We also need to take out on how vast or knowledgeable are you about environmental challenges and problems that are in your community or your county and how would you be able to engage fellow youth, how are you able to influence them positively, bring them on board so that you can take up the challenge of conservation. Certainly with the help of the county government of Kiambu for this matter that is coming up this weekend. And so, we have engaged comprehensively with the county government of Kiambu last weekend in the same area where the event would be happening. We conducted a massive cleanup under our investigation so that we can orient, and all the models were there, the 20 plus of them. So that we can orient them, we can initiate them into that which will be the reason for their having this crown in the first place because we have, so that we are able to distinguish ourselves from many agencies and individuals and entities that have similar initiatives. All right, Anzi, I want to bring you through the conversation. You talked about the East African and it's such a broad way when we talk about people living with albinism and in terms of venturing into the industry, trying to think of the environment of entrepreneurship. How do you think people take it to be like for you? In many years people don't believe in people with disability, but we always do this to show people that we are beautiful and what other people can do, we can also do. How any other person can be on runway, I can also be on runway. How other people can conserve the environment, I can also conserve the environment. What exactly role do you want to play in this particular thing, TEK? I have decided to be their bestender for the environment in Kiambo County. They have their theme called Shades of Beauty so the team in Kenya they don't discriminate anybody they are there to involve anybody regardless of your color regardless of your race regardless of what we are going through they are just ready to work with us. That's so amazing to have you of course even as the co-founder. Let's talk about the TEK and is it a part of people that work together? Yes, like I said we are a consortium. At the national level we work closely in consultation with the Ministry of Environment and Forestry under the leadership of the CS Kiriako Tobiko we are affiliated to NEMMA work very closely with the Kenya Forest Research Institute which is KFRI and Kenya Forest Service because in our conservation expert endeavor would want to work under guidance and we have government agencies that have the technical expertise so that we just not just driven by passion doing this thing without results so we really have them on board to guide us but we have various agencies that come on board to support us in our course and quest for conservation we have partners like Cooper's Cape Brand who are our strategic partners to ensure that we get the many seedlings that we need to not just plant but grows that we can in a concerted effort help in realizing the desired forest cover by the national government of 10% to 22% I'd like to ask Felista a simple question if by chance you want this tournament what one thing would you do for Kembo in terms of environment? What I would do for Kembo County is making sure that the plastic that affects the environment is well used like recycled I'll make sure that these projects that take the plastic and reuse them or recycle them to do something else better and mentioning that Matthew I would like to ask you about this when you go to places like Dandora you find the site, Dandora Dam site and there's so much of recycling let me ask about there how do you think about young people earning through the environment? I should say West for that matter that ends up in Dandora my school of thinking is that West is not West West is resource and valuable resource for that matter only if disclaimer if it is sorted that source and therefore in our inclusive way wanting to have everyone on board and having youth make and ensure that it works for them in terms of revenue generation we have come up with initiative to of called sorting at source we go into homesteads and issues and sorting from our very own to ensure that from every household we have segregated bins for West collection because then that is which is food waste for instance, biodegradable some of it can be used as chicken feed some of it can be used as animal feed the one that can be reused for instance for plastic bottles water bottles we launched earlier in the year initiative called greening schools program and it is adopt a tripa child initiative inside the schools so we have done 7-8 counties now we go to a county we pick select one school we do 1000 tree seedlings we make available and every child as per the student number from standard one to grade 8 are tasked to a tree and they work on growing it but very obvious because of the erratic weather patterns and unpredictable rainfall coming we have the plastic bottles that are menace so we have challenged kids to on the day of planting the trees to come with plastic bottles of one liter, half a liter and all so that after you have planted a tree you irrigate it ideally you fill the bottle with water having planted the tree and you have watered it you plug the water bottles beneath the stem of the tree where you planted it so that it will gradually over time take in that water for a week or two then it will be able to replace so that is a mod that we have adopted or have in place to ensure that we have the water bottles recycled secondly is in primary schools we have every household there are higher chances that they make they make milk tea in the morning and therefore we have for this milk packets that are plastic to a good extent after the use we have a mod of having parents through their children and after every week they bring them to school to their environment club and so whoever is a patron or the patron rather picks them and we have a challenge to it the child that brings the highest pieces of milk packets for mollo whatever all those brands that we have in the market gets an incentive those packets cumulatively in their hundreds or thousands do we pick them and help use them as seedlings sockets at the nursery so do you realize we will have recycled yes it's a process but it's doable because then this plastic that is not degradable when it ends up in the any other environment it becomes toxic so we have very very innovative ways of process of recycling but this is its success is anchored on to source to sort all these waste at source that which cannot be recycled we have it segregated and rightfully disposed because the biggest problem that we have in many places many counties many communities that we find ourselves in is proper solid waste disposing systems all right that's amazing and Anjali let me ask you this being their bazaar what do you think that is lacking in terms of entrepreneurship and young people and the environment because he has talked about recycling what do you think is lacking the knowledge young people are so ignorant about environment young people are so ignorant about recycling so I think they should be they should be equipped with proper knowledge for now they should conserve the environment and we should be encouraged on planting trees yes all right and that's amazing have ever planted a tree so far have you not really just came in yeah no I will be planting trees actually we have a tree planting session all right coming Saturday yes it will be a morning session we are going to have in preparation for the evening event so that we can accord him an opportunity that's why we really felt like we should have such because then through initiative we accorded them a rare opportunity do you realize a tree is something that when you wake up beautiful air that you find yourself breathing comes from a tree God forbid but when I am no more my last packaging will be a tree so how much more should I deliberately and intentionally give myself towards that particular course and to ensure that I plant as many as I can possibly do there's a famous say that goes that a wise man he who plants a tree whose fruit they'll never eat or under whose shade they'll never be able to eat and our philosophy is to leave a heritage future generations of cleaner greener food and water secure environment of flora, fauna and aquatic life so we are planting trees not just for yourself, not for ourselves for generations to come who can benefit from it because of time for the interest of time I want Felicias to tell us what do you think some of the quintessers have that you think one as an outside Kunaeli that is a very hard question most of them most of the models they are really good I would say that they are very good their work is good their confidence level is good so yeah it's a challenge but let them know you are coming yeah I'm coming all right I want to give each and every one of you 30 seconds because for the interest of time we don't know what they really are 30 seconds kindly a parting shot so you are all welcome to add an Anna Small for our event it's going to be lit, it's going to be fire we want to plant trees we want to encourage everyone to come we got tickets so you can grab a ticket yes so that we can keep our Kenya greener and cleaner all right I don't know whether the picture is ready for the event that is coming up next I don't know whether it's ready up to now but before then I think Felicia you can be giving us your parting shot okay what I would love to say is first I would love to welcome everyone to our event the tickets are as cheap as 150 so you are all welcomed and next I think we need to start being aware of our environment all right and of course what you just saw before before the parting shot of Matthew is the poster and the prices are there and everything is there you can gen them on board of course in Kiambu where exactly Matthew? at Ananas Mall Ananas Mall is located in Makongeni it is on Thika Garisa Highway 10, 15 minutes drive from Thika Town but you're coming by bus you will alight at Makongeni right opposite the terminus is Ananas Mall so my parting shot is that you're welcome on board like my colleagues have mentioned all inclusive we even have people with on wheelchair ideally so we're not only about people with the albinism condition who would want on the runway we are looking forward to have environment buses from all in with diverse challenges and therefore checkers out on our social media platforms we are on Twitter at T.E.K. underscore Kenya Facebook team environment Kenya and Instagram team environment Kenya after the big event coming up on Saturday we will be preparing for the World Cleanup Day so yes, 21st of September we are inviting you to come on board team environment Kenya, the ambitious crazy youth that we are we are challenging ourselves to go to the county so we shall be there for whole week to engage with like my colleague mentioned the biggest lacking component is environmental education and awareness which will ensure that is done before we will have various buildup activities cleanups, tree planting in the area that it is but we are challenged to ensure that we will growing mechanisms to ensure all those trees it has been a pleasure to have you of course, that is it from us and of course team environment Kenya is really doing so much and we really appreciate them and of course even for you sitting there to watch us we will be coming back with Barry do have yourself a nice moment let's take a short break