Alice Akinyi Achieng, a fish monger at the bustling Migori market, is a true manifest of hundreds of women whose economic status have been transformed as a result of the collective efforts of a village support group.
The 62-year-old mother now boasts ownership of a piece of land and has fully educated two of her children, besides setting up a magnificent home (as per the standards of the local people) through the local support groups she has been a member of over the years.
“I am happy and contented with the kind of life I am currently leading because of the support I have been getting through my support group,” she told a KNA crew during an interview that clearly confirmed the ‘power of a woman in Kenya’s society.
Her journey to her economic turning point dates back to 2016. Before that, Alice was barely scraping by.
She had lost two children, and her modest earnings from selling omena were insufficient to pay her rent and keep her four kids in school; she could hardly put food on the table.
“I had lost two of my children earlier on. And to add salt to the wound, the financial burden weighed down on me. I was barely surviving,” she recalls.
Unknown to Akinyi, her struggles would gradually end with the advent of the’ Otieko Weche’ women’s group.
Through her Omena business, she met other women who were equally grappling with challenges to make ends meet.
“It was the same story,” Akinyi says. “The other women were also struggling to make a living from their small businesses.”
Akinyi and her peers founded the Otieko Weche women’s group, which initially aimed to pool resources to support each other.
But, as she says, none of them anticipated the profound impact it would have on their lives. “It is almost surreal. None of us expected it to be life-changing, but here we are,” she says.
Through the support of the group, Akinyi has stabilised her finances, owns a home, and can provide for her family’s needs.
“I know I have a home,” she says excitedly. “And it is not one that I have rented. I bought land using the loan I received from the group and built a house for my kids and me.”
She also reveals that she educated her son, who took up an artisan course in plumbing. He is now done with his education and has a wife, whom I’m also helping to train in tailoring,” Akinyi reveals.
Alice also leases part of her land to farmers and uses the rest to plant maize and legumes for her family’s consumption. “Between selling fish and leasing my land, I earn enough to sustain my life without being indebted to anyone,” she adds.
Akinyi isn’t the only one in the Migori market with a riveting success story emanating from assistance from support groups.
Jennifer Ngeta, also a fish vendor, credits her financial stability to her group called Dry Fish, which she says has helped her grow her business and support her family.
“Because of the group, I provide for my family and keep my business running,” Ms. Ngeta says, adding that the women in the market were ‘stay-at-home mothers,’ whose husband’s income could not support the entire family, but through the support groups, they can find footing and support their families.
“Many of the women used to stay at home, depending solely on their husbands. When they decided to start trading in the market, they joined the groups to deal with market instability and find support from the rest of the women,” she says.
Women’s groups at the Migori Market operate on a simple model. To be a member, one only has to be a trader in the market, and most of the groups are categorised according to the type of commodity they sell.
“There are groups for fish, tomato, and omena traders. Even the guys who push wheelbarrows and those who sell seeds and legumes have their own social groups,” Akinyi explains.
She further says that each group holds weekly meetings where the members contribute a certain amount. The collected sum is then given to one of the members following a system called a merry-go-round.
“All the groups have merry-go-rounds. For instance, in Otieko Weche, we contribute 500 shillings at every meeting and hand over the entire sum to one member.”
To uphold responsibility, those who do not show up for meetings or slack off on payments are charged a penalty of half or a quarter of the contributions.
According to a study by the International Journal of Social Science and Technology, Egerton, and the University of Nairobi, rural womenfolk have created a convenient credit system that is both easily accessible and cheap.
The Otieko Weche women group is among the groups in the Migori market where women prefer creating funds from which they can borrow and save money.
They each save a fixed amount weekly, which they receive by the end of the year.
Apart from savings, the group also provides loans and microloans. Each member contributes an additional Sh50 or Sh100 that any member in dire need of a loan can borrow.
According to Akinyi, they used to receive Sh5000 in loans at the start of their group, but they now receive between Sh150, 000 to 200, 000.
“Every member is expected to save money weekly. Whatever they have saved, they receive at the end of the year.”
She added that they use the loans to purchase stock for sale and the savings to run their families and educate their children. “Depending on the amount you borrowed, you return 500 or 1000 shillings at every meeting. So when you take a loan, you use it to invest in your business and use bits of the profit to pay it back,” says Akinyi.
This is a cheaper and less risky venture compared to loans from banks, she noted, saying that it is why the groups have resolved ‘No’ to bank loans.
“There are high chances that banks will auction my property if I’m not able to repay the loan. We have seen many women get stripped of their belongings. But with our support group, we understand each other’s challenges and make the terms flexible,” Akinyi explains.
Apart from flexibility, women’s support groups are tailored to offer financial solutions for their specific needs. Members have an understanding of the harsh economic times and can tolerate late repayments with bearable fines.
One of the pivotal roles of the group in Akinyi’s life is having a sense of community and supporting the other members. She reveals that she feels more empowered sharing her happy and sad moments with others.
“We have a Burial and Benevolence Fund (BBF) system that caters to the loss of immediate family members. I reckon things would have been a lot easier had I had the group when I lost my two children,” she says ruefully.
Additionally, Akinyi says that thanks to the group, she now has financial literacy despite not having had an educational background in entrepreneurship.”
While the success is tremendous, support groups in the Migori market are not without challenges.
One of the challenges they face is the lack of a larger amount of capital. The funds they get from table banking are relatively small, which limits the scale of their business venture to small-scale trading.
“Our incomes are inconsistent, so it is hard to maintain regular contributions for table banking. This makes it hard to grow our businesses beyond small-scale trading,” explains Janet Anyango, one of the leaders of the Dry Fish group.
By Anjeline Ogal and George Agimba
