From Heather, our Executive Director:
The Africa-Middle East Microcredit Summit, www.microcreditsummit.org, is about to begin. In our programs we read that one-fifth of the world’s population lives on less than $1 US per day, and that in 2006 the Global Microcredit Campaign launched two second-phase goals for 2015: 1) work to ensure that 175 million of the world’s poorest families, especially women in those families, are receiving credit for self employment and other financial and business services; and, 2) work to ensure that 100 million of the world’s poorest families rise above $1 US per day adjusted for purchasing power parity. We are urged to use this summit to create new breakthroughs for our institutions, and to be energized by the shared commitment of 2000+ delegates from around the world.
The opening session begins with a dancing and tumbling team sponsored by Jamii Bora. They are lively and fun, the dancers are fast, the tumblers construct themselves into cheerleading type pyramids of dizzying heights, and the jugglers are skilled. What a fun way to start the day.
The founder of BRAC welcomes us, and gives a brief overview their organization. BRAC provides loans to women selling vegetables. From there, they realized that better seeds would make a difference in the women’s productivity, and now BRAC is the largest high-quality seed producer in Bangladesh. They learned from a borrow that it was tough to find a buyer for the milk she was trying to sell, and BRAC is now a very large producer of milk. Their repayment rate on loans is 97-99%. The women are able to send their children to school. BRAC provides medical service as a part of their loan programs. BRAC has a goal to get Bangladeshi women out of extreme poverty in two years. They sound like an effective organization that really listens to the people they are trying to help.
And then Ingrid Munro came to the podium, and the place started buzzing. She is a petite, lean woman with white hair that surely used to be platinum blond, loosely caught up in what my daughter used to call a “messy bun.” Her eyes are aqua and sparkle with humor. In this place especially, Ingrid Munro is a rock star of Rolling Stone proportions. People are leaning forward—they really are, it was like a wave of movement.
Ingrid begins her speech with saying that in 1999, Jamii Bora started with 50 women beggars. Today, they have 300,000 members. She credits an 8 year old small street boy, who in 1988 became a son in the Munro family, who told Ingrid of his friends who were still suffering in the slums, with the idea for Jamii Bora. He brought his six year old best friend, Miriam, over, and the two played and played. One day, Miriam’s mother showed up, wondering about Ingrid. And as most parents of children who are friends do, Ingrid and Miriam’s mother became friends too. Through this relationship, Ingrid met other mother-beggars in the slums, including Clarisse and Janet, who are now Promoters with Jamii Bora, recruiting other mother-beggars in the slumbs to join Jamii Bora and improve their economic situation. Ingrid has a group with her, and she proudly introduces the “true founders of Jamii Bora,” her children and these women. (Ingrid is the only one of the group to share her microphone time with members of her organization, by the way.)
Janet speaks, “We are so proud today that even the beggars are credit worthy.” Clarisse speaks, “I came from the street, but now I am a rich woman.” Ingrid introduces Joyce, another member of Jamii Bora, as a superstar lender. Joyce tells her story: “I fled the clashes in 1992 in Moru with only my children and myself. Now I have 62 employees in my various businesses. When I first joined Jamii Bora in 2000, my first loan was for 7,000 KeS. Now my loan is at 2.1 Million KeS. Now I am a millionaire!”
Ingrid reviews some of the innovations Jamii Bora has undertaken. After one year of Jamii Bora, the first member in the group had died. This gave the impetus to start life insurance, which pays off the loan and doubles the amount the member had in savings, so that the family, especially the children, have some resources. Ingrid started health insurance, and the program is self-sustaining. It costs $12 US per year for a family of 5, and Jamii Bora works with mission hospitals throughout Kenya. Ingrid believes that if you save the life of one mother, you save the lives of five kids (she calls them kids). Ingrid started a training group to help members learn business skills and English. And just earlier in March, Jamii Bora became a Bank in Kenya.
Ingrid introduced Wilson, describing him as a thief and a feared gangster 10 years ago. Jamii Bora accepted him as a member to get him out of a life in crime. Today Wilson is a leader and has convinced hundreds of other criminals to leave crime. Wilson said, “My first loan was 2,000 KeS, and now I am the proud owner of a 2 bedroom home in Kaputei.”
Ingrid went on to describe the housing project that Jamii Bora is developing. “Kaputei is beautiful, safe, practical, and a nice place for raising kids, all the things the slums are not.” She introduced Jane, who will be speaking on Friday in a panelist session. Jane has HIV but now can eat well due to her successful tailoring business and has health insurance. Jane also is a Promoter with Jamii Bora, convincing others with AIDS that they can do it too.
There is such energy to the fact that Ingrid has brought her members with her, and has given them the floor to speak for themselves, it’s consistent with the entire path of Jamii Bora. Ingrid credits the poor with making Jamii Bora work. She concludes, “Don’t underestimate anybody.” The applause is thunderous.
Citi had the sorry lot of following up Ingrid, but did a nice job of summarizing their efforts through Citi Foundation. Currently they give $180 Million to microfinance institutions (MFIs). Their philosophy is not to give a woman a fish, but to help her start a fish business.
While we are waiting for security to get comfortable with the room so that the President and the honored guests may enter, I introduce myself to a young lady sitting next to me. She is movie-star pretty and has the easy, casual, yet fine attire that would fit her in nicely as an extra on Gossip Girl. Nicole is from New York City and is a student at Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, currently doing a semester abroad in Cape Town, South Africa. Nicole has started her own microfinance institution, Bicycles Against Poverty, which provides loans to folks in Gulu, Uganda (what a small world, I introduced her to Sister Liz, and they had a nice chat, because Nicole had spent all last summer in Gulu) to buy bicycles, and the loans are paid back over 18 months. Nicole is part of the student delegation of MFI Connect, an organization of college students interested in microfinance. Wow!!! How can you not be impressed with this “anything is possible” attitude, and that it is directed outward toward others.
During the wait—Presidents will arrive when THEY decide they are going to arrive—we take the opportunity to introduce ourselves to Joyce Wairimu, the superstar lender. Joyce filled us in on the details. She was evicted from Moru in 1992 during the very bad clashes. Children were killed, and houses were burned. Joyce escaped with her 5 children, but nothing else. She came to Nairobi and met Isabel, who invited Joyce and her family to live with her and her 9 children, in her 10×10 one room house. Joyce had nothing except God. Isabel told Joyce about her own business, and Joyce started digging and planting maize and peas and beans, and she also began washing clothes, earning 900 KeS per week. Isabel told her about this new group, and invited her to come and see if she wanted to join. Joyce met with a Jamii Bora manager in 2000, who explained to her if she could save for 6 weeks, she could then borrow money. Joyce got a small plot, about 30’x75’, and built a tin house covered with a paper roof during this time. She learned English from Jamii Bora. Saving 50 KeS per week, she first borrowed 3,500 KeS. Her children encouraged her to start a restaurant, in the house, and so she hired a carpenter and bought timber and had tables and benches made. In the restaurant, she sold tea and rice. After 4 months, her first loan was repaid. Joyce started a second restaurant with a 20,000 KeS loan and rented out some of that space, and paid the money back. With the profits from the 2 restaurants and another 2,000 KeS loan from Jamii Bora, Joyce started a cinema business, giving out coupons to restaurant patrons to encourage them to go to the cinema. Joyce then took out a loan for 45,000 KeS and bought a generator, and repaid that loan. Joyce saw that children were coming around the restaurant, and she decided to go to the slums to get orders from the schools to take food to those schools. She took out a loan for 104,000 KeS and used that and some of her profits to buy a van to take food to the schools. Then she started a business making juices. Joyce returned to Jamii Bora, and with a loan of 122 KeS she bought three more plots of land, built buildings, and became a landlord. Now in her restaurants she also sells broiler chickens. Some she keeps for food for the restaurant, the others she sells. In the post-election violence of 2007, Joyce’s first restaurant was demolished. She went to Jamii Bora and was approved for a 1.5 Million KeS loan to rebuild. She has reconstructed with stones from the original building, and has rented rooms to generate income during the rebuild. Slowly by slowly she is rebuilding her restaurant, and has added goats, and has plans to buy a cow. Joyce is now servicing a 2.1 Million KeS loan from Jamii Bora and is fully confident she will be able to pay that back. Joyce is very hard-working and truly is a superstar for Jamii Bora.
All rise! The President of Kenya and the Queen of Spain enter and take their seats. Serada, a well-known Kenyan singer, provides an introductory entertainment of a song she wrote for the occasion, imploring all of us to unite together to fight poverty and hunger. Sam Daley Harris, of Results.org, and the organizer of the summit, welcomes the group, saying Africa is the incubator for microfinance innovations being adopted around the world. Microfinance restores an individual sense of worth and sets people free. We should ask, “what are the best methodologies we can use to end poverty in my country?”
Muhammed Yunus speaks. Microcredit is about addressing the poor, not about making money. Those who are getting into microcredit to make money have it wrong. The poor do not ask for charity. We need to reinvent banking. Microcredit shows a new path. We can make ALL the millennium goals. Do not give up hope. Even if we only make 6 or 7 of the 8, don’t give up, keep after attaining that last 1 or 2 goals. Don’t give all the responsibility of this to the government either (Yunus looks at the dignitaries). Look to the young people and the citizens. This is OUR job. We are not money makers. We are human makers. Let the young creative people get in the picture. Let’s put poverty in a museum. Thunderous applause.
Her Royal Highness Princess Maxima of the Netherlands speaks. Now is the time to move to the next level. Reach the very poor in rural areas with new technology such as mobile kiosks to pay bills. Broaden our scope beyond just microcredit and work on other financial services such as savings accounts and insurance. Reinforce client protection to ensure that customers are only sold services they need and are given loans they can repay.
Her Majesty Queen Sofia of Spain speaks. The banks of Spain are now involved in and supportive of microcredit. They have microcredit branches designed to give the poor access to credit. Spain is honored and proud to host the next Microcredit Summit in November 2011, and we are all invited.
The Honorable Uhuru Kenyatta, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance for Kenya speaks. Kenya recognizes the critical role of microcredit. We have enacted a microcredit act to facilitate this. We are proud of our own Jamii Bora which has started a microcredit bank.
The Vice President of Gambia speaks. African governments DO realize that it makes good sense to invest in the poor and in women. She commends Ingrid Munro for her visionary achievements.
His Excellency Honorable Mwai Kibaki, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Kenya, speaks. The combined effects of high food and energy prices brought to a halt much progress many countries had made in reducing poverty. It is unacceptable that one in six persons in developing countries have insufficient access to food. We need to address credit rating systems. We commend the mobile phone money transfer system of local kiosks that now has 10 Million people accessing the system to pay bills and transfer monies, valuable and practical financial services.
We rise again, and the Honored Guests exit to take their lunch. Once the security team has safely whisked them away, we are free to depart from the main hall as well. Lunch is in a giant tent on the grounds of the conference center, and I have never seen a more efficient buffet service for 2000 people.
We split up for various afternoon sessions. Dinner plans were split: Dick and Elizabeth met their friend Anthony for dinner; Toni and Liz found a pizza place across from the hotel, and Maureen and I had a casual meal in the hotel’s pub. It was a long day, but it was cool to be in the same room with royalty, and to hear their enthusiasm for the Millenium Goals. It was even more special to be in the same room with Ingrid Munro, and to feel a vicarious sense of pride that hers was by far the most dynamic and “walk-the-walk” presentation.
From Africa, all the best from Heather, Toni, Dick, Elizabeth, Liz, and Maureen to our friends at MPA.
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