Content : Visit village Kenya – Oct 2014 tab
By the numbers
Six months into the project, we’ve mobilised six groups comprised of 138 members, only 12 of them men. We favour women for one simple reason: when women earn more, they’re more likely than men to spend on their children’s food, housing, health and education.
The oldest group member in Kithimani is 88-year-old farmer Louisa Kilovoo. The youngest is 25-year-old Mary Kanini Mutiso, also a farmer.
Learning and saving together
Every group meets on a weekly basis. Five are learning how to function more effectively and start savings funds. Disciplines include keeping minutes and appointing a cash register to note savings will help them allocate loans and support each other’s ventures.
Kelvin Mulwa
A few villagers have started to save, most for the first time in their lives. (Putting money aside is rarely a priority when caring for several children on an average US $2.30 a day.) At the moment savings are low, ranging from 200 Kenyan Shillings (KES), worth just over US $2, to KES 14,000 (US $ 16). Field Officer Kelvin Mulwa (pictured right) is working to raise them.
Kithamani tomatoes
Business as un-usual
The climate in Kithimani is dry, but most people have only farming to rely on. Our group members are no exception: 109 of the 138 grow and sell staple crops including maize, beans and other vegetables.
Having been introduced to more modern farming techniques, many will now move from the hand-to-mouth existence of subsistence farming to selling surplus crops. Keeping livestock is also popular. Six of the villagers participating in Hand in Hand’s training have livestock of some sort. Others activities include charcoal production, knitting and running a grocery stall.
The business skills the villagers will learn over the next year, from book-keeping to marketing, will apply no matter their profession. They will know whether they have set prices for their produce at the right level, and if they are making a profit.
Luisah Kilovoo, the oldest Kithimani group member, was one of the first to take the business training and is living proof it is never too late to learn. “Now I know whether I am making a profit or a loss on the chickens and rabbits I keep and the oranges I grow,” she says.
Voices from the village program
Content : Visit village Kenya – April 2014 tab
Victor Ablonda |Kithamani village| Machakos county, Kenya
Victor Ablonda (pictured left), one of Hand in Hand’s most experienced Business Relationship Officers in the region, has already spent hours criss-crossing the roads in and around Kithimani to recruit 400 Self-Help Group members for training.
Once Victor is satisfied that the groups are committed to the training, we formally include them in the programme and establish a business training schedule. Within two months, Victor had already mobilised three groups, counting 72 members altogether. The majority of members, 66, are women.
One such group (pictured right) has already started operating a so-called ‘merry-go-round’ savings fund that each member pays into weekly, and which each member can access – with the group’s approval – to help finance a business.
The group looks forward to receiving Hand in Hand business and skills training over the coming weeks and months.
“I know from experience that training the people of Kithimani in business skills will really empower them to see earning opportunities other than farming,” says Victor.
Members of the Kithuluni Farmers Self-Help Group meet to discuss their savings fund | Kithimani |Machakos county, Kenya
Voices from the village program
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Total COTY funds raised in 2013 (£1.7 million) divided by 2 (number of charities each year) dived by 54 (pounds per job created in Kenya)
15,000 jobs
“Development happens through jobs,” says the World Bank. Our entrepreneurs make their own success, breaking the cycle of dependency
75,000 lives improved
Every job we help create in Kenya benefits an average five family members – children especially
Based on Guardian datablog charity donations list (minus FACE ratios for The Gavi Fund Affiliate and International Finance Facility for Immunisation Company)
90% program spending
90 pence of every pound we raise is spent on programs. On average, the UK’s 10 biggest development NGOs spend £0.80