by Helen
On Monday, we had a very impact-full visit to Jamii Bora, a microfinance organization that was started by 50 women beggars in 1999. It is the largest microfinance organization in Kenya. To be honest, I did not really know what a microfinance organization was until earlier this week. Basically, the idea with Jamii Bora is that it gives a small loan to people (starting at $10) in order to start a business. There are lots of detalis with Jamii Bora, for example, you have to save $10 in order to get $20 to borrow. The money you save is the collateral in case you default on your loan. The interest is tiny – along the lines of .05% and Jamii Bora does not turn anyone away. So if you are HIV + or have a sick kid, or you are an alcoholic, the organization does not deny you a loan if you can bring in collateral to prove that you can save.
As a result, Jamii Bora started many other initiatives, like health insurance programs, alcoholism education, etc. The women at Jammii Bora were the first to realize that if a woman’s child is sick, she will pay for his illness before she repays her loan. The default rate on the loans at Jamii Bora is 10%.
On Monday, we had a very powerful presentation by the staff of Jamii Bora. A couple of things struck me – the organization focuses heavily on moving people away from the notion of charity and giving people handouts. The leaders believe that an individual has to feel ownership for the money they receive because they are more likely to then repay it as opposed to spend it non productively. Jamii Bora also has business education classes to help people with basic accounting and leadership development so when they are ready to hire people to work for them, they know how to keep books.
There were amazing speakers who talked to us about their stories and how Jamii Bora helped them. They were former criminals, beggers, women who were forced into prostitution, etc. and are now relatively successful in Kenya with businesses and incomes.
After the official visit, we were taken by Jamii Bora to Nairobi’s largest slum. Most of Jamii Bora’s clients reside in that part of town so they wanted us to see the work that they are doing with our own eyes. That experience was one that I will never forget. The smells, the open sewers, the endless “houses” made of old metal pieced together to provide a roof, people doing laundry in dirty run off water, and so many other images were a first for me.
We spoke to one woman who used Jamii Bora money to buy coal in bulk and then resell it. She makes 150 shillings in profit a week (about $2). Another woman sells chicken head and neck fried to people. She also takes care of her grandkids because her kids are unable to do so. She makes about 250 shillings a week ($3 approximately) .The most interesting thing about her is that she said that she used to live in poverty but now she has “this” and is almost ready to move into subsidized housing (provided by Jamii Bora). True poverty to her means sleeping on the streets wrapped in toilet paper. When we asked how people use the bathrooms, they said that it’s calling using a “flying toilet” so using a plastic bag and then disposing of it in mostly non designated locations.
I wish I was a writer so I could truly describe what I saw and the vastness of it. There are 2 major slums in the city of Nairobi, and a million people live in those slums. There are children born every day and diseases are rampant. There are 2 schools and a hospital run by an NGO in the area. And yet, life goes on. I can’t say that I felt an overwhelming feeling of despair. People living in the slums still have a roof over their head and they are very proud of that. They dream of getting their children out of there and therefore talk a lot about the fact that they are able to send them to school. No English was spoken in that neighborhood, so we had translators with us. Lastly, the other idea that was hard to swallow is that we saw the “success” stories of Jamii Bora. It puts it into perspective of what the failures are.
I guess I walked away feeling very fortunately to have been born in the place where I was because there is no way children that are born in the slums deserve the life that they inherit, nor is it fair how hard they have to work to get out of there.
Jamii Bora provides some solutions and reaches out to help, but the country has a long way to go to get its urban poor on its feet.