Further Information

Behind this project are Hraundís Guðmundsdóttir and Ragnar Sverrisson.

My name is Hraundís, I reside at Rauðsgili in Borgarfirði and run the business Hraundís ehf. I’m an aromatherapist and an essential oil distiller, to make essential oils plants are distilled in special distillers. I have been producing icelandic essential oils since 2014, and studied the process in Arizona. I also have a degree in forestry and work 50% for Skógræktin the icelandic forest service as a forestry advisor.
Rauðsgili has 135ha of land that are used for plantation. And about 70% of that land has already been planted. The Rauðsgili family has also been involved in beekeeping since 2010.
I mostly make essential oils from evergreen trees and have 14 types of essential oils for sale, I’ve also made different merchandise from the essential oils such as pain relief oil, bath salts and shampoo for example.

Ragnar has visited rural areas of the country selling dried fish for many years and has often come to Rauðsgili selling me fish. We have talked about beekeeping when he has dropped by, but he has sponsored people in Kenya to buy beehives to create employment for them.
For the last two years we have been discussing that it would be ideal to teach people in Kenya how to make essential oils to increase employment there. However the lack of time didn't make it possible until now in january.
For a long time I have wanted to go to Africa as an volunteer and now the dream is finally becoming a reality. My aim is to go to Kenya later this year and teach interested people about the production, then they will have the opportunity to visit me in Iceland to get further education about the production.

My name is Ragnar Serrisson and my wife is Agnes Wambui. I’ve been working with Húmanistahreyfingin since 1981, most of the time in Iceland but later internationally. Since 2004 I’ve been doing charity work in Kenya under the Húmanistahreyfingin. All work under Húmanistahreyfingin is voluntary work. We emphasis helping people to help themselves and work towards changing their conditions. We set up projects that they work towards and give them income that they can then use to work on the projects.
We have a seminar where we teach people to work together and believe in their own ability. We emphasise connecting people in groups so they can learn from each other and have support from the network we build up. In the past couple of years I’ve mostly emphasised technical projects and innovation, since I’ve worked in that field for a long time.

We have also been tanning fish skin, mostly of the nile-redfish, to make valuable raw material from a product that has mostly been disposed off.

This creates employment and projects that can support charity work. In recent years we have been focusing our attention more and more on the unique position that this area has.
For a few years we have been collaborating with a Swedish company https://betterglobe.com that has the goal to eradicate poverty and corruption in Africa with forestry. The company offers people in europe to invest in forestry in East Africa and the profits are equally split between investors and the partaking communities in East Africa. The success and effect that this has had on the partaking communities is in credible as can be seen in a presentation here below. The company has gotten a number of acknowledgments both in Kenya and internationally, and anyone can participate as an investor.

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It is great that this project opens up yet another opportunity to utilise the nature in this area using the knowledge and experience from Hraundís. Her knowledge makes it possible to give more people the chance to utilise nature to create themselves livelihood and giving others opportunities for education, along with the ability to feed and educate children.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta48GlIArCM&feature=youtu.be

Nakura in Kenya

Nakura in Kenya is the fourth biggest city in Kenya with about 340.000 citizens, that's equal to the whole population of Iceland. They mostly have timber industry, agriculture and tourism. Nakura has Lake Nakuru National Park which is a known national park and has great wild life. Kenya is a rich invegetation and a generous land. The native people have always used plants for therapeutic use. Kenya has one Nobel Peace Prize winner, Wangari Maathai, in 2004 he got the price for, among other things, empowering women and promoting forestry

What are essential oils?

Essential oils are made by distilling plants in special distillers, by doing this pure oil can be extracted from the plants. The essential oils have different activity depending on what plants they are extracted from. They can be bactericidal, fungicidal, antihypertensive, soothing, stimulating and much more. By analysing essential oils it is possible to figure out their activities.