Wanjiru Waweru: A graduate of Glasgow university who earns a living by recycling timber for school furniture.

Wanjiru Waweru Waithaka is an Interior Architecture graduate of the University of Glasgow School of Art. For the past ten years, she has successfully developed and maintained Amber Africa, an interior architecture firm. Individuals, hotels, and multinationals in East Africa are among her clientele.

Market Gap

Her new business created and produced “Funkidz” classroom furniture. The furniture is built out of wood and marketed in Kenya, however since there is locally produced wood due to the country’s restriction on tree cutting.

Her business reconsidered the issue and chose to utilize recovered lumber. They paid close to nothing for their timber, allowing them to donate the savings to the local schools. Her business requests more tree planting from the schools in exchange for affordable furnishings.

With a plant in Kikuyu and headquarters in Westlands, the firm employs around 20 employees. She also created a superhero robot for instructional purposes.

Passion and Motivation

Wanjiru is motivated by a strong desire to make a good impact in the society she lives in and the world at large every day. Wanjiru uses her ability of imagination to help her achieve her goal. Her heart beats faster as a creative entrepreneur, creator, and manufacturer.

Wanjiru feels that being an entrepreneur is not enough and that she should mentor young men and women whenever she has the opportunity, encouraging them to believe that they can be anything they want to be, regardless of the circumstances they live in or were born into.

Wanjiru feels that by doing what she does every day and taking one step at a time, she can help future entrepreneurs in Africa. She aspires to change people’s thinking about the “little roadside trade culture” in Kenya and Africa, so that the continent may become a continent of industrialists, both men and women.

She is passionate about empowering women and young people via business, and she has been invited to speak on panels both locally and globally on multiple occasions.

Contribution to Societal Development

Wanjiru was chosen by UNESCO and UN Women to present her work with the Funkidz Education initiative Kidz Go Tech during the Mobile Learning Week in Paris.

Wanjiru was chosen by Facebook and UN Women as the only representative from Kenya to be on their board of innovators during a launch of the Facebook and UN Women collaboration in Capetown and Johannesburg, South Africa, in June 2015.

Wanjiru was chosen as a speaker for the World Economic Forum for Africa in Durban, South Africa, in May 2017. Wanjiru created a sustainable board for the building sector out of agricultural waste in 2018. The first initiative of its kind in Kenya, disrupting via innovation and addressing global sustainable building concerns.

Funkidz was honoured by the Kenyan government’s Ministry of Environment for its unique approach to solving environmental challenges and commitment to sustainable consumption and production.

Wanjiru got an award from the Kenya Association of Manufacturers in appreciation of her commitment to Kenya’s manufacturing sector and empowering women in manufacturing.