Our First Fish Farm

One of the key goals of The Giving Exchange (TGE) is to find and develop projects that are replicable so that we can create a template or instruction manual that allows us to successfully and repeatedly implement the project around the world. TGE has done this in the past with both greenhouses and chicken coops. This year, we took on a fish farm.

Sikizana Trust is home to 40 children from ages 5-18, who were either abandoned or victims of abuse (physical, neglect, early marriage, or child labor). The trust functions as a rescue home and offers the children temporary shelter, back-to-school programs, litigation and medical care. To assist these critical programs, the father and mother of the Trust reached out to TGE asking for the funds to construct a fish farm that would both provide a healthy supplement to children’s diet and create a continuous source of income.

After TGE Board members assessed the project for sustainability and impact, they found this project idea aligned perfectly with the TGE mission to improve living conditions and create sustainable business programs. The next step was to put the project on our website and determine if the most important people, the donors, agreed – you did! Over the course of 6 months, we were able to raise the $3,355 USD necessary to fund this project (cost includes construction materials, labor, and first 6 months of fingerlings and feed).

From our many years of donating to and partnering with Kenyans, TGE understands the importance of lifting up communities and individuals by giving them the resources necessary to manage the project themselves. Upon raising the funds for this project, we transferred them to Sikizana who then hired local laborers and used local supplies to create the Fish Farm.

Then, during our annual trip in August, a van of TGE volunteers took a road trip (13 hour driving day on Kenyan roads to be precise) to visit Sikizana Trust and see the project with our own eyes. This is part of our certification promise to our donors, but it’s also just a whole lot of fun. We sang, danced, played with parachutes and balloons, found Waldo, made scratch off rainbow animal masks, and ate cake! All before the official opening ceremony of the Fish Farm.

We were given a tour by the father of the trust who has done extensive research on maintaining a Fish Farm specifically in rural Kenya. He decided to start with a batch of 1,000 fingerlings: two tanks of tilapia and one tank of catfish. Two of the children of the home were assigned to help take care of the farm. From purchasing to the first harvest, it will be 8 months. Once in full production, the Sikizana tanks will be able to hold 3000 fish. They plan to sell 1000 fish per year at $2.50-$3 / fish (there is a high demand for fish in Kenya right now, especially because of recent news that red meat can cause cancer), and they hope to serve fish twice per week to the children at the trust – at 20 fish/week, that’s just about 1000 fish per year.

Side note: to our pleasant surprise, the opening ceremony also included 6 tree plantings in the area surrounding the fish tanks – the trees will shade and protect the fish tanks, and continue to represent the ecological sustainability mindsets of both Sikizana Trust and The Giving Exchange – very special!

This was a very cool project to watch come to fruition, and we are excited to monitor its progress over the next 2+ years. Once we have research and statistics compiled from this project, we will be able to share the ‘playbook’ and replicate this sustainable business model elsewhere!

Thank you to all of you who made this project possible. Please reach out with any comments or questions; we'd love to hear your thoughts!