When the word “slum” is spoken, a certain image comes to your mind. For some, it may be the image of the inner city projects with too many children and all the parents huddled into one apartment doing drugs. Something like a Cabrini Green on the south side of Chicago.
For those of us who have actually been in an experienced a slum, we may have the image a little more accurate, but the reality of it is something that I will never fully comprehend. It is absolutely 100% different than where I live, and probably just as different than the projects of the inner cities of America. The conditions are inhumane. There’s really no other word that can accurately describe the conditions – no human, nor animal, should live like this community we visited today.
This morning, we spent some time with an organization called Jamii Bora, a microfinance bank aimed at taking people from the streets or the slums and raising them out of poverty. They have a saying at Jamii Bora, “Charity will never help anyone get out of poverty.” You can give and give and give to someone, but that will only help them as long as you give them the money (or whatever resources). Jamii Bora is not about charity. They are about helping build a ladder of which their members have to climb – the organization will not climb it for them.
How Jamii Bora works is that after the 200 Kenya shillings that a group saves, for every shilling that an individual saves, Jammi Bora will donate two. They always start with a very small micro-loan because they don’t want to loan too much money that an individual can’t handle it. So, if an individual takes out a loan for 2000 shillings (plus the 1000 they save) they are free to take it and start their business. When they pay off that 2000, they are free to take out an additional load for some more (again, with the savings they have). It goes on and on until they eventually start taking out loans for 60,000 shillings or more.
Jamii Bora now has 200,000 members with 2.5 billion shillings loaned out over the course of the 9 years they’ve been in existence.
Jane Ngoiri, 36, and mother of two fell into prostitution a few years ago after her husband left her after four years of marriage. Her oldest child was 2 years and 8 months old. Jane moved back to her mother’s place in Nairobi, but was unable to find any real work.
“Prostitution, unlike other businesses, is easy to start as one does not require capital. The tragic thing about it is that you lose your dignity and at times one may not get the money they anticipated. So many people also contract deadly diseases while at it. Sadly, majority are youth and that tells you where our children, our hope for the future will become,” said Jane.
In 1999, Mama Ingrid (founder of Jamii Bora) spoke to Jane and the girls she ran with. Mama Ingrid convinced 6 of the women to allow her to help them. Jane bought her first sewing machine after a full year of saving funds to enter the program – 2100 Ksh. Once purchased, she started making clothes and selling them at markets in town. She repaid the 4200 Ksh loan within one year, and immediately took out another loan for 8000 Ksh. Again, she repaid it and took out another for 16000 Ksh and started a second business.
As life started looking up, Jane looked back at her past, and how she had lived a reckless life as a commercial sex worker. She made up her mind to go for Voluntary Counseling Test, not because she was ill, but so as to know her status. She tested positive.
“Testing HIV positive is not the end of life, and I can testify to that because I have accepted my status and go on about life like any other person. One will only feel stigmatized if you allow yourself to. Instead of a pity party, I would be happy to see HIV positive people joining groups such as Jamii Bora which can empower economically, and one does not have to get stressed on where to go to get their meal.” (taken from The Christian Professional, October 2008).
12/1/08
