United Women Initiative group members enjoy porridge made from banana flour with Gatundu North MP Wanjiku Kibe. [Photo|Facebook]A group of women in Gatundu north Kiambu County have ventured into activities that will ensure people enjoy most of their fancied snacks, mainly viewed as unhealthy including cakes, biscuits and crips but made with healthy ingredients.The group, United Women Initiative, which was formed in 2015, says good health is a priority for them. It is made of 35 members and it initially focused on sensitizing elderly persons on consumption of organic farm produce to reduce lifestyle diseases.However, the group has since graduated from focusing on the aged to making crisps, ugali, porridge, chapatis, mandazi, biscuits and cakes from banana fruits, cassava, strawberry and sweet potatoes.Irene Nyambura Mukuha, the group’s coordinator says that a bunch of bananas containing 10-15 pieces of banana, a slice of cassava, some strawberry leaves and a piece of sweet potato produces a kilo of flour which the group sells at Sh200."A banana fruit is like maize which can be used diversely. It has a lot of nutritional value which helps our bodies preventing us from lifestyle diseases," Mukuha said in Gakoe Market on Thursday during a sensitization event.They buy raw banana fruits, cassava, strawberry and sweet potatoes from women farmers within Gatundu North and amongst themselves which they then manually peel, chop into small pieces, clean and dry the product for a week, before they are milled into flour using ordinary posho mill machines.They later converge at different locations depending on their arrangements to prepare the final products which they sell to locals."We meet twice a month at ward levels in a location that members agree. When we meet, apart from preparing our products we also encourage each other to do exercises so as to maintain our bodies, because our aim is to fight lifestyle diseases as we empower women," she adds.In a good month, the group which meets to make the products twice a month makes Sh40,000 which they reinvest. Although the group does not have a specific market, members are mandated to popularise their products during women gatherings.Muraru, Ndimaku, Mutore are some of the traditional bananas that the farmers use in making the flour.Meanwhile, lack of milling machines, poor marketing of their products, lack of enough capital to start an organic products factory are some of the challenges the group is facing.

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