Kirumbi Village bank

Kirumbi is a village in Tsangatsini location in the remote dry lands off Kaloleni district in the coast region of Kenya. The village is inhabited by the Giriama, one of the nine sub-tribes of the Mijikenda community in the coast province of Kenya.

Kirumbi is home to over 2000 people rose to public limelight after initiating a community managed financial institution.

Prior to the village based financial institution popularly known within development circles as the village bank, the people of Kirumbi were organized around a Village Development Committee (VDC) to address issues affecting their daily livelihoods.

The idea of a savings and credit scheme started with a visit to savings and credit schemes by community groups supported by Coastal Rural Support Programme Kenya (CRSP-K) in the larger Kwale district. Excited with the idea, Kirumbi Village Development Committee invited CRSP to train them on how to initiate and manage savings and credit scheme. After the training the Village Development Committee approached the Kilifi District Development Programme (KDDP) to help fund the building of a structure that would later house the activities of the Village Development Committee.

When KDDP wound up in 2000 the Kirumbi village development committee approached Coast Rural Support Programme for increased interface and facilitation of the community strategic plan. Through the strategic plan development one major result was a shared vision to graduate the savings and credit scheme to a village bank which has grown to serve communities even outside the location.

Benefits of the Kirumbi village bank project

Mwayele Charo an official of the Kirumbi VDC receives a certificate during the Community Open Day organised by CRSP-K in 2010

According to the participatory rural appraisals reports done by KDDP for Tsangatsini location over 60% of the population of Kirumbi village lived in absolute poverty. As a result of that poverty percentage many households were dependent on relief provisions for food needs.

The income levels of the villagers were general poor with women and persons with disabilities being the most vulnerable.

Many children dropped out school and some did not even get the opportunity to attend school as their parents could not afford to raise money to buy clothes for uniform and school levies. Even after the introduction of free primary education with the coming into power of National Rainbow Coalition popularly known as (NARC) government in 2002 not all children managed to join school.

During this time awareness of the community on local and national issues very low and many had accepted the vulnerability as a natural thing that could not be overcome.

Through the PRA  process the villagers was able to identify key challenges/challenges to improved livelihoods and they developed action plans for solutions to same.

Apart from the savings and credit scheme, the community was able to come up with other solutions to low income and unemployment rlated to livestock production such as bee keeping poultry keeping and goat improvement. Recommendations from the  PRA process also resulted into further capacity building  community members and their institutions so that they could be informed and participate in decision-making processes both locally and nationally

Since the elevation of the savings and credit schemes to a village bank Kirumbi villagers have witnessed great socio-economic growth. The following are the specific growth areas that have been noted since the bank started its operations

Employment creation

Some community members have found work at the bank. At present the bank has 5 staff full time employees who come from the local area.

Education

The community members have benefited from a lot of trainings and exposed to other forms of learning e.g. exchange visits, exhibitions etc.

Strengthened community institutions

Community organizations through the education and trainings have attained levels of better management of their initiatives. The community organizations are mobilizing their members to

Participate fully in producing income through the various income generation activities and save the surplus.

The bank has now turned to be source of development support for the whole location. Communities no longer have to go to the urban areas to bank their earnings or open accounts with commercial banks but can now do it at the village at Kirumbi village bank.

Through the bank other communities outside the location have benefited from capacity building trainings from the leaders of Kirumbi village bank to enable them access the banking services offered.

Improved enrollment in schools

Kirumbi village is served by one primary school which is public. Since the graduation of the savings project into a bank the rate of students dropping out of school because of financial problems have reduced significantly. The bank has initiated a program of paying for the school children levies which cater for the expenses of non teaching school staff not supported through the Free Primary Education funding arrangement  and teaching staff employed by the community through profit generated from the bank transactions.

Conclusion

The process of community empowerment should at all times consider the peoples wish and build on them in order to cultivate a strong sense of ownership.

Communities for many years have remained cut off from the banking sector hence limiting their access to credit for investment opportunities but the introduction of village based saving schemes and Front Office Services agents which played a major role in improving rural economy in India if well managed can be a very effective empowerment tool especially to the rural communities of Kenya.