ADVOCACYNET 418, November 4, 2024
Table Banking Cushions Women Against Poverty in the Settlements of Nairobi
Stella Makena, left coordinates the Shield of Faith association in Nairobi and helped Liz Awor, a group member, build a kitchen garden on her cramped balcony. Ms Awor harvests vegetables every day and has reduced her food bills by over 60%.
Liz Awor makes a good living compared to most who live in the crowded informal settlements of Nairobi. Helped by a college degree, she prepares students to enter the catering business and earns an average of 30,000 Kenyan shillings ($230) a month.
But as a single mother with two boys at school and rent to pay, Ms Awor still struggles to cover costs. Her monthly bills come to around 27,000 shillings, leaving little to spare.
Ms Awor is one of twenty women who have joined Shield of Faith, the association of mothers that composts food waste and grows food in the settlements. The group has been supported by The Advocacy Project (AP) since 2022. We profiled their work earlier this year in our video the Worm Ladies of Kibera.
Many group members are single mothers and membership brings companionship. But a recent visit by AP found that Shield of Faith also offers economic relief after a year of disasters – flooding followed by riots – that has plunged many low-income Kenyans deeper into poverty.
“Many women in the settlements depend on daily labor in the estates,” explained Stella Makena, who coordinates Shield of Faith. “When travel becomes impossible, as happened this summer, they are out of work. It’s as simple as that. This has been a terrible year for women in the slums.”
Savings and loans
Shield of Faith runs a savings scheme that loans members up to 2,000 shillings a month at a 10% rate of interest. In return, each member of the group (known locally as a chama) contributes 200 shillings a month to a kitty overseen by Ms Awor, the group treasurer. The model is known as “table banking” and is popular throughout Kenya.
Shield of Faith put 14,000 shillings into the chama at the outset and adds earnings from Lishe-Grow (“Grow Nutrition”), a fertilizer produced by composting worms. Helped by repayments, the group has a healthy balance of 80,000 shillings in the kitty and is able to make 10 loans a month.
Ms Awor herself takes out a loan every month and uses the 2,000 shillings to buy rice which she then re-sells for 8,000 shillings. Emma Mwanaisha, a new member, earns 10,000 shillings a month working for a pizza delivery company – nowhere near enough to pay for fees, food and rent. But she too has taken out a loan every month since joining Shield of Faith in April.
“It’s all very hand to mouth,” said Stella Makena. “But the loans provide these women with flexibility and an economic lifeline.”
Ms Makena added that her members show the same discipline that is often associated with microlending to women. Shield of Faith has made over 100 loans this year and only two members have fallen behind on repayments.
Kitchen gardens
The economic crisis has also underscored the importance of kitchen gardens as an economic investment.
Shield of Faith included kitchen gardens in the original project to improve nutrition in the settlements. But as the economic crisis has deepened, the economic benefits of gardening have also become apparent.
Fourteen members now manage gardens, and a recent visit by AP found them growing more varieties than in 2023. In addition to local staples like sukuma wiki (collard greens), Ms Awor grows strawberries, kale, spinach, tomatoes, lettuce and onions in her cramped garden. She beamed as she reeled off the benefits: “I’m very proud! We eat fresh food from the farm without chemicals and save a lot!”
Along with rent and school fees, food is the biggest expense and Ms Awor said that her food bills ran to 5,000 shillings a month before she began growing vegetables. Roseanne Wairimu, another group member, said that three leaves of kale sell for 10 shillings in the market. She needs 200 leaves to feed her family.
Ms Awor’s garden is a testament to innovation. It consists of cascading wooden boxes that are fitted like blocks of Lego into the narrow balcony. Ms Makena and Ms Awor then erected a rack of metal shelves next to the boxes to hold recycled plastic containers where the vegetables are grown.
Everything is on wheels to give Ms Awor more options in the narrow space and allow her to take her garden with her if she moves. The cost came to $120, but Ms Awor harvests vegetables every day and has seen her weekly food bills fall by over two thirds. “Yes, the garden was expensive,” agreed Ms Makena. “But it will provide Liz with food wherever she goes.”
As the gardens have grown, so have the challenges. Several gardens have been moved at the insistence of uncooperative landlords. Ms Wairimu’s strawberries are under attack from birds. Ms Mwanaisha’s kale is threatened by her neighbor’s chickens. All of this requires constant oversight from Ms Makena.
Reaching communities through composting hubs and schools
Stella Makena dreams of taking composting and gardening from individual households into neighborhoods, and changing behavior on a much larger scale.
The idea took shape earlier this year when several Shield of Faith gardeners decided to turn their gardens into “hubs” where they could compost organic waste from local street vendors.
At first it appeared that vendors would expect to be paid, but recent experience suggests the reverse might be the case. Valine Nyarangi shares a house with two other families that pay to dispose of their garbage. After Shield of Faith built a new garden and dry composting bin for Ms Nyarangi, her neighbors asked if they could put their organic waste in her bin.
Three local vendors followed suit and Ms Nyarangi now gets a steady supply of muck that will turn into mulch and help her grow vegetables. “Why not?” she said. “I’m saving them money!”
Another route to community change may also be opening up through schools. Ms Makena spent much of last year trying unsuccessfully to get government permission to work in schools. In an attempt to reach schools she also installed a kitchen garden at Project Elimu, a large after-school program for students from the settlements, but found that the children were in no mood for gardening after being released from class.
As a result, Ms Makena is turning to like-minded teachers like Jacqueline Kaloki at Our Lady of Mercy, a boarding school for girls that is deeply committed to the environment. The Turkish Embassy has donated two large greenhouses to the school. Shield of Faith has installed a large bin for dry waste and contributes to the salary of a farm manager.
All students are required to join a club and Ms Kaloki runs the school branch of 4K Clubs of Kenya, a country-wide program run by the Ministry of Agriculture that nurtures farming skills in schools.
We visited Ms Kaloki shortly before the school holidays and watched as she invited her club members to start composting and growing at home during their vacation. Their reward: strawberry cuttings from the school farm when they return from the break.
Ms Makena awaits the outcome with interest.
READ AND WATCH MORE
- Meet The Worm Ladies of Kibera (photo portraits)
- Check out Shield of Faith on Instagram
- Watch The Worm Ladies of Kibera (video)
- Read Composting Empowers the Worm Ladies of Kibera
- Read The Greening 0f Kibera
Stella Makena, Valine Nyarangi and Valine’s daughter Keilah, 2, at work in Valine’s kitchen garden. Valine is composting organic waste for two neighbors and three street vendors.
