Program outline: Wasichana Wetu Wafaulu ('Let Our Girls Succeed’)
By Evans Otibine, Akiba Mashinani Trust project officer
Concern Worldwide is an international humanitarian organisation. It works in many places where Kenya’s poor live, such as rural areas, arid and semi-arid lands in Northern Kenya, and Nairobi’s urban informal settlements. In Kenya, it’s work includes providing access to free good quality education for children living in urban and rural areas, and helping their parents become more economically independent, including in response to the deepening climate crisis in Kenya’s drought-affected rural regions.
Wasichana Wetu Wafaulu
In Nairobi and Marsabit Counties, Concern Worldwide runs a multi-sectoral program to address urban and rural livelihoods, primary education, water and sanitation, health and nutrition, and governance. One of the programs, Wasichana Wetu Wafaulu, is designed to address cultural and social economic barriers that prevent children from progressing from primary to secondary education. It targets Kenyan primary school-going children who live in arid and semi-arid lands and urban slums.
Wasichana Wetu Wafaulu means 'let our girls succeed’. The aim is to support 72,000 primary school girls in Kenya to finish their current phase of education with improved learning outcomes, so they can transition successfully to a positive, productive next phase of their education. The program hopes to help girls gain skills, qualifications and confidence with which they can take control of their lives. It takes an integrated approach to child education, thinking about girls in four ways: the girl herself, at home, at school and in the community.
In Nairobi, the WWW program has involved 100 organized community groups, 18 primary schools, nine secondary schools, four technical and vocational education and training (TVET) centres, and four catch up centres.
Partnership with the Muungano Alliance
Since January 2020, the Muungano Alliance (specifically the federation Muungano Wa Wanavijiji and Akiba Mashinani Trust) have been collaborating with Concern Worldwide on the WWW program. The partnership makes use of Muungano’s vast knowledge and experience in community organizing and mobilization, financial-literacy training, and financing group-owned projects. By incorporating community groups that are already mobilized by Concern into AMT’s saving and loan financing systems, we aim at building their capacities and, later, at progressing to offer them livelihood loans.
For each community group in the program, Akiba Mashinani Trust will first do an assessment to find out where it is—looking, for example, at group membership and ownership, group governance, financial management activities, and groups’ plans for their savings and investments. AMT then makes recommendations for each group on possible solutions to address identified gaps or needs. We then train groups about savings systems, how to strengthen their group structures, and also on business planning and management so that the people who are members of these groups can improve their income-generating activities.
Progress so far (as at April 2021)
Assessing community groups
Planning workshops held in Nairobi have provided an avenue for Muungano community facilitators and Concern Worldwide and AMT staff to get to know each other. At these workshops, the community groups to be assessed were allocated to working teams and timelines agreed for conducting assessments.
Three round of group assessments have now been conducted, with the participation of 26 community facilitators drawn from Muungano networks in Mukuru, Mathare, Kibera and Huruma settlements.
The facilitators have assessed a total of 52 community groups from the following informal settlements / low income areas in Nairobi: Baba Dogo, Dagoretti, Dandora, Fuata Nyayo, Kamkunji, Kasarani, Kayole, Kibera, Korogocho, Mathare, Mukuru, Sinai and Tassia. The assessments found that income-generating activities practiced by the groups include: liquid soap making, table banking, yoghurt making, making re-usable menstrual pads, tailoring and bead-making.
Many gaps and needs were identified by the group assessments. These included:
Groups were not registered. This hinders them from accessing external sources of funding to finance income-generating activities.
Groups do not have a constitution or by-laws, or where by-laws exist members did not participate in their development.
Groups’ by-laws are being flaunted by group leaders.
Poor governance/leadership of groups. Members spoke about their lack of trust in group leaders and how this affects implementation of groups’ income-generating activities.
Lack of record keeping.
No or few audits: most groups said that they either do not conduct audits to verify the accuracy of their finances or they carry out audits irregularly.
No bank account: some groups had not opened bank accounts. This makes it difficult to access external funding, which has to be channelled through a bank account in the group’s name.
Some groups did not do projects or income-generating activities together, and so lacked plans for investing their savings.
Many groups said they lacked the business management skills to operate their income-generating activities.
Most groups said they lacked the capital to run businesses, and that this was a big impediment to growing and expanding their businesses.
Some groups did not practice saving. For others, savings contributions were declining drastically.
Lack of technical know-how related to producing goods or services for income generation (for example, in making soap or yoghurt and how these products can be more competitive in the market).
Training for facilitators to support systems, structures and income-generating activities
Orientation and training workshops for community facilitators were also held. These help the facilitators in their role of working with community groups to address the gaps identified in the assessments. In particular, these workshops focused on how the facilitators can support groups’ governance and management, savings and loaning, book-keeping, business skills and resource-mobilization.
Developing work plans for income-generating activities
As at April 2021, Muungano community facilitators have successfully delivered income-generation training to 36 groups. Following training, groups are appraised by Concern Worldwide (Kenya) and, so far, 9 groups have been given grants of KES 50,000 (about USD 460) to boost their income-generating activities. The grants are given in tranches, such that after monitoring following receipt of a first tranche of KES 10,000 (about USD 92), groups with good performance records then qualify for a second tranche of KES 40,000 (about USD 370) to further support their group activities. One line of assessment of group performance is how individuals’ profits from group activities have support girls in continuing their education. Groups yet to benefit from Concern grants will be further assessed by Muungano in order to determine their eligibility.
Growing Muungano
As well as supporting the community groups described above, this partnership has helped expand the Muungano federation of slum dwellers in Kenya. Through it, Muungano has been able to reach out to 100 more community groups.