Meet the Clients
The clients below shared their stories with a Parliamentary delegation to Kenya in September 2006, which included Annette Brooke MP, Chair of the APPG on Microfinance/Microcredit.
Annette Brooke MP with children of Microcredit clients, Jamii Bora, Kenya.
Each woman below is a client of the Jamii Bora Trust (JBT), a Microfinance Institution working with the extreme poor in Nairobi, Kenya.
The Jamii Bora Trust was established in 1999 by a Swedish woman named Ingrid Munro at the initiative of 50 poor women from Nairobi who were looking for help to improve their lives. Ingrid invited the 50 woman to contribute their weekly savings into a collective pool and promised to match the total amount saved. Eventually all of the women were all able to take out loans up to double the value of their savings in order to finance small business ventures.
Just seven years later, Jamii Bora now has 61 branches and more than 130,000 members – most of whom are street beggars or ex-street beggars – making it the biggest microfinance institution in Kenya. Following the same, original model, members are organised into credit groups who guarantee each other’s loans and provide moral and social support to each other.
The name Jamii Bora means ‘good families’. Jamii Bora’s mission is to assist their members to lift themselves out of poverty and to build a better life for their families.
Beatrice
Beatrice moved to Nairobi believing that she would have a better future in the city but experienced greater hardship there. She even sold home-brewed alcohol in order to support her children. Beatrice took out her first loan of 2,000 KSh (£14.65) to buy vegetables to sell at local markets. She was soon able to pay back her loan and expand her business further. Beatrice has gone from a small scale vegetable seller to a wholesale seller of soda drinks. She told the delegation that she no longer considers herself to be poor since she can afford food, clothes and an education for her children. Beatrice is now on her fourth loan with Jamii Bora which has enabled her to send one of her children to secondary school and another to college for vocational training. It has also enabled her to learn how to read and write. Her dream is to buy one of the new houses being developed by JBT with a housing loan so that she no longer has to rent.
Keziah
Keziah is 82 years old and the oldest member of Jamii Bora. She was a former Mau Mau freedom fighter and told the UK delegation that she was one of the poorest of the poor who was forgotten about when Kenya gained independence. Like Joyce (below) Keziah moved to Nairobi and tried to grow her own food by cultivating food on roadsides.
Keziah became the leader of a women’s group which began to explore how they could improve their future. The group invited Ingrid Munro to talk to their group and through her learned the importance of loans and paying them back and helped to start Jamii Bora.
Keziah’s first loan of 5,000 KSh was used to start up a video hall in the slum area that she lived in. She later, took out a second loan in order to buy a generator so that she could show films even during power cuts. Further loans have enabled Keziah to buy and develop a plot of land for her children and grandchildren; to buy a VW Beetle and to provide her children with educations. Further loans have enabled Keziah to buy and develop a plot of land for her children and grandchildren; to buy a VW Beetle and to provide her children with educations. When the UK delegation met her, Keziah was loan free but thinking about what her next business venture might be.
Beatrice
Beatrice lives in the Mathare district of Nairobi but originally comes from the Rift Valley province. Her husband died many years ago leaving her to bring up her 8 children alone. HIV has killed all of her children except for one daughter who ran away from Mathare and one daughter-in-law. She is now the sole carer of her 12 grandchildren.
Beatrice told the UK delegation that she had no one to share her problems with and felt so desperate that she considered killing the children, and then herself, with rat poison. She was too poor however even to buy the poison. A lady called Hanna introduced Beatrice to Ingrid Munro who gave her food…and hope. Beatrice took out a loan of 2,000 KSh and started selling vegetables. Gradually her life started to change and she began to pay back her loans and increase her savings. She said that JBT has helped her to shed many problems and to regain her youth. She has taken out further loans totalling 180,000 KSh (£1,320) to build a permanent home for her family. Her home has 14 rooms of which she rents out 10 to raise enough income to repay her loan. In addition to being a landlady, Beatrice now runs 5 other businesses: a butchers; restaurant; hairdressers, shop and selling water. Two of her children have completed secondary and four more are in high school. Beatrice has told all of her children that they must work hard so that they can support themselves in the future.
Joyce
Joyce moved to Nairobi with her children in 1992 after being displaced by tribal clashes in the Rift Valley. She left her home and animals behind so started cultivating land on roadsides in Nairobi to grow her own food. Joyce also started working for other people e.g. washing their clothes but the 900 shillings (£6.60) that she was earning each week was still not enough to support her family.
Joyce was introduced to Jamii Bora and the concept of saving 50 KSh a week. She eventually saved 3,000 KSh and took out a loan to start a small restaurant. She carried on saving and took out larger loans to start another restaurant and a video hall. With her profits, Joyce has gone on to open more businesses and expand her restaurants. She is able to employ more than 60 people, including her three sons who were trained with loans from JBT, and is therefore helping others to improve their lives too. Joyce is now on her 9th loan with Jamii Bora. “You’re no longer looking at a poor woman!” she told the UK delegation.
If you would like to share the stories of some of the clients your organisation is working with please contact the APPG co-ordinator here.