The Plan

To design a business that will be able to give its profit back to the community. We will start a restaurant to cater to the Daystar University community. We will construct the restaurant in the most environmental and efficient manor. We will build using straw bales. We will seek and source the necessary materials from the local community and only purchase abroad what we cannot find in Kenya. We will use the restaurant as a place to inform the public about needs within the community. The restaurant will also serve as a place for informal job training to youth who have not been able to finish secondary school.

The Project

The Little Inn Straw Bale Community Project is a community initiative in partnership with Kenya Kids Ministries, which has set out to create a unique business catering to the Daystar University Community. This business, located just outside the front gates of Daystar University, would generate capital that would be reinvested within the community surrounding the university and, in particular, Taraja Boys Home. The business will be a small restaurant that will seek to cater to the students at Daystar Community and try to offer them something different, of high quality, and inexpensive. This never-been-done-before type of project is unique in that it uses the most innovative and appropriate technology available to us today.

The Design

The restaurant itself will be designed in an environmentally sustainable and cost efficient manner. The technology and materials that will be involved in building and running the restaurant are such things as, straw bales, passive lighting, solar panels, saw dust stove and oven, rainwater collection, and other locally available resources. The straw bales are from what is left over from harvesting wheat, barley or rice. These stalks are then baled into large blocks, and typically, in Kenya, they are destroyed or used for feeding animals in times of drought. These bales are low cost and can be used as an alternative building material for walls. In Kenya we are able to harvest and bale these straws all year long, it is therefore more sustainable and environmentally friendly than using wood or stone. This revolutionary method is the future of development. Other technology such as the passive lighting and solar panels will manipulate available resources to create energy and provide long-term low costs. The sawdust stove and oven is a brilliant technology that uses waste saw dust as an alternative fuel for cooking. The saw dust can be purchased locally at extremely low costs. The rainwater collection system is a method of collecting rainwater from the roof of the building when it rains and diverting that water into storage tanks, it is another way that we will be using all of our available resources and being good stewards of all God provides us with. The restaurant will also incorporate materials that are locally available.

Profit:

At the end of each month 50% of the restaurant’s profit will be given completely, with no strings attached, to Taraja Boys home, a children’s home within the community. 25% will be reinvested in the restaurant and the last 25% will be given back to Kenya Kids Ministries to sponsor other such projects.