Nandi Hills is a beautiful, lush highland region in southwest Kenya, home to tea-growing communities and Nandi Tea Estates, one of our long-term tea suppliers. Since 2013, we’ve worked alongside Nandi Tea Estates on a series of value chain investment projects.
Water closer to home
For many years, limited water infrastructure meant families in Nandi Hills had to collect drinking water from quite a distance, carrying it up the hills to their homes. Fetching water is often seen as the responsibility of women and children, meaning they had less time available for attending school, earning an income or caring responsibilities.
To help address this challenge, we began working with Nandi Tea Estates in 2014, co-funding a water project in the community of Sosiot. Delivered over four years, the water project laid good foundations for working collaboratively with our supplier to deliver the water projects that would follow.
We then turned our attention to the neighbouring community of Kipkimba, delivering a multi-year water project between 2019 and 2022. This included a new catchment reservoir, pipelines connecting it to storage tanks and a pump house with back up solar power.
In total, the Sosiot and Kipkimba projects have improved access to clean water for more than 9,300 people.
In 2023, we partnered with Nandi Tea Estates again, and Infré SA, who decaffeinate tea for us, to deliver the Kaptien Water Project. Kaptien was the last community in the Nandi Hills area still without reliable access to clean water, making the project a key milestone in extending water infrastructure across the region. The project included the construction of a reservoir, water tanks, pipe works, a water pump and solar-powered infrastructure.
Today, nearly 12,000 people in Nandi Hills have access to safe drinking water closer to home. Not only this, but families now have more time for education and income-generating activities, while improved access to water has also created more opportunities for livestock farming and vegetable growing, helping to strengthen food security and household incomes.
Alice Tollan, Taylors Sustainable Development Manager, shared her reflections on the partnership:
Access to water is a challenge we see across large parts of our tea and coffee supply chain. It’s something here in the UK we often take for granted so it’s easy to forget that water is the foundation to a decent life. Access to clean water is vital for good health and sanitation and forms the foundation for community and economic development which is why it is so important we support our supply chain in obtaining and maintaining access to safe, clean water. The Kipkimba water project with Nandi was one of the first projects I worked on upon joining the Taylors team and having worked with them for the last 7 years it has been amazing to see the development of the communities.
"In September 2025 I was fortunate to travel and visit Nandi, the people who are using the water points and the local schools we have supported. Hearing firsthand what access to water means to the people working in our supply chain is truly humbling. I am proud that Taylors invests back into our supply chain and the fact that Nandi, and latterly Infré who decaffeinate our tea, have co-funded the project support is testament to our shared values and commitment to safeguarding the tea industry for years to come.
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Strengthening education opportunities
As access to clean water improved across the region, we began supporting another priority identified by local communities: improving educational opportunities for children and young people.
In 2023, together with Nandi Tea Estates and Infré SA, we co-funded the construction and equipping of science laboratories at Kipkimba and Kaptien Junior Schools, giving students access to improved facilities for practical learning. Further investment in 2024 has provided additional classrooms, lockers, laboratory equipment and learning resources at the schools.
Building on this progress, in 2025 we committed funding for a two-year programme to expand classroom capacity at Kipkimba Junior Secondary and Comprehensive Schools. The project includes new classrooms, an administration block and modern sanitation facilities, including gender-specific toilets and menstrual health facilities.
Suleiman W Jillo, General Manager at Nandi Tea Estates Ltd, said:
Nandi Tea estate is located right in the middle of a local farming community. Most of these farmers live and cultivate on land that was previously owned by Nandi Tea Estates limited in the pre-colonial days but ceded to the community after independence. The community lacked many basic amenities including adequate portable water and education facilities.
Nandi Tea identified these needs and addressed them through a structured Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative. The collaboration between Nandi Tea and Taylors of Harrogate since 2013, and more recently together with Infré SA, has greatly enhanced the speed and efficiency of delivery to positively and impactfully address these needs.
The provision of portable water close to homesteads has had significant impact on the farmers livelihoods and general living comfort. Mothers can now spend more time tending to their kitchen gardens, improving food security. Children can now attend school on time and have more time in the evenings for their studies. Families can spend more time practicing responsible crop and livestock farming and other good agricultural practices.
"The education projects will have a long-lasting effect, not just now but for future generations as well. The educated generation passing through this institution will in future become highly enlightened farmers, with some potentially becoming the future managers at Nandi Tea and leaders within the tea value chain and elsewhere.
Nandi Tea and the Nandi Hills community remain eternally grateful to Taylors of Harrogate for the impactful support that will last generations and guarantee sustainability of tea production in Nandi.
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