Co-operative Bank and KTDA: Real Stories, Real Support for Tea Farmers and Their Families

“My name is Eric Mugo, and I am a product of the KTDA scholarship program. I come from a less privileged background, where society often defines your path before you even begin.”

“The first challenge I faced was structural that’s the lack of financial capability to support one’s academic journey. The second was a social challenge where the community and society often view you through the lens of where you come from, rather than where you can go.”

“Being part of this program wasn’t just about getting school fees paid. It was about being placed in an environment that built both my academic potential and personal confidence.”

“We were taught about life skills. We had regular sessions on how to overcome challenges not just academic ones, but social ones too. We created a community within the program, a kind of family that helped each other cope with issues many of us couldn’t discuss elsewhere.”

“The institution helped us realize that we have a purpose. That we have a duty to serve. That we can overcome the fear that comes with walking into a prestigious school and feeling like you don’t belong there.”

“Today, I can say with full confidence that the opportunity I received wasn’t just about passing KCSE. It was an opportunity to understand myself, to believe in my own ability, and to become someone my family and community can be proud of.”

“Perseverance is not easy. It takes courage. But if you stay the course, and if there are institutions willing to believe in you, like KTDA believed in me, you can change your story. You can become someone who stands tall, who encourages others, and who gives back.”

“It’s our time to realize that we can do it. We can stand together. We can be great. We can create.”

“We run a foundation Co-operative Bank Foundation that supports smart, intelligent children from needy backgrounds across the country,” Kihara said. “They are drawn from all over Kenya, and we do interviews for those who are extremely needy. It’s a full scholarship, right from high school and even at university level.”

“We've taken quite a number of children through school. I can't remember the number exactly, but it’s something we've done annually for many, many years. It’s part of our DNA.”

“Through all our lending activities and financial services, we have tools for access. Some are digital lending platforms for example, weekly or monthly credit to support ventures. We also offer asset finance say you're starting a business but only need one key asset to get going we can step in.”

“If you're a major distributor of household goods, for example, and you need stock, we offer credit to support that. We even use account data to build early scoring models meaning if you bank with us, and we see your statistics, we can initiate a digital conversation. We tell you, ‘You qualify for X,’ and then you come in to formalize it.”

“That’s very powerful when you think about supporting commerce and young businesspeople nationally.”

“We are looking at the entire chain of activities almost the full life cycle of a human being and a business. Whether you’re a producer or a farmer, whatever commodity you grow tea, coffee, dairy, sugarcane, avocado, macadamia you’re delivering it to a buyer or aggregator, often a factory.”

“That factory is processing it and either exporting or selling locally. What we’ve built is what we call ecosystem banking. We look at the whole value chain from the farmer, to the processor, to the final buyer. We support each link.”

“The proceeds of whatever happens at the mid-level eventually flow back to the farmer. That’s why we intervene early even at input stage. In coffee, for example, we’ve had a successful model where we finance cooperatives to buy inputs in bulk, and they distribute them to their members.”

“We’re replicating that model across other value chains even beef. Say you’re a pastoralist delivering cattle to a processor. If you bring five or ten animals, we offer you financial accommodation even before the processor pays you so you can go back and get more stock.”

“Same thing with poultry. These are rural communities, and they need working credit structures. We’ve developed financing for agriculture and rural communities for a very long time.”

“It’s core to our business and we never forget our origin: we were born out of coffee co-operatives.”