Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Slumdog Entrepreneur
Slumdog Entrepreneur
by Sam Daley-Harris, Founder of the Microcredit Summit Campaign
When my wife and I slipped into our theater seats to watch Slumdog
Millionaire, we braced ourselves for a journey into urban slums, a world
inhabited by over one billion people globally.
But unlike the movie-goers in the theater that night who pinned their
hopes for one chai wallah (tea seller) escaping the horrors of the slums
of Mumbai, India, on the long-shot odds of his winning the Indian
version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, we knew that right now there
is a tool that has helped not just one movie character but more than 100
million of the worlds poorest people actually begin to escape the worst
devastations of poverty. That opportunity is not a game show but
microcredit-small loans to start or expand businesses like selling
tortillas or cell phone time to your neighbors. And if there was an
Oscar for assisting beggars, thieves, and prostitutes to find a
dignified route out of the slums, Id know where to look for the winner.
I wouldnt look in the cool dark of a movie theater, but in the bright,
hot sun of Nairobi where you can see the success of entrepreneurs in the
urban slums, Jami Boras "slumdog entrepreneurs." Jamii Bora, which
means good families, is a Kenyan microfinance institution that has grown
from lending money to 50 women beggars ten years ago to serving more
than 200,000 members today. One of those entrepreneurs is Joyce
Wairimu. Wairimu was one of the 50 women beggars who started Jamii Bora
with founder Ingrid Munro in 1999. Munro calls Wairimu one of the fast
climbers out of poverty. How fast? In ten years Wairimu has built six
businesses and employs 62 people.
Another of the fast climbers is Wilson Maina. Before Jamii Bora, Maina
was a thief, one of the most wanted criminals in Mathare Valley slum.
Starting with a loan of $20, Maina has built four businesses and a new
life for himself and his family. Along the way, he has convinced
hundreds of youth to get out of crime. Now thats a "lifeline" that
really matters.
Munro didnt stop at proving microcredit to help the poorest slum
dwellers. She decided to build a town with decent housing and business
space for her entrepreneurs. "Every poor persons dream is to move out
of the slums," Munro says, "not patch up the slums." On January 30th,
thats exactly what happened when the first 246 families moved out of the
slums and into the newly created Kaputiei town with nearly 1,800
families to follow. For the same monthly mortgage they had paid for
their one-room shacks, each family now lives in a home with two
bedrooms, a bath, a kitchen and a living room. But this is ultra
sub-prime lending that works because in order to qualify for a mortgage
the residents have to have successfully repaid three micro-business
loans.
Where does Munros capacity to innovate and defy conventional wisdom in
the microfinance field come from? It started 20 years ago when she and
her husband adopted three street children. It was in the fertile ground
of Munros relationship with the mothers of her sons friends in the
streets-women who were beggars- that her profound insights would grow.
When Munro, a Swedish trained architect and urban planner, retired from
the African Housing Fund in 1999, she thought she would also retire from
the little group of 50 beggar women with whom she had been working. But
when the women pled with her not leave them, Munro agreed to stay and
insisted that they must lift themselves out of poverty. For Munro that
meant the women had to start developing the discipline of saving on a
regular basis.
She had them come every Saturday with about 50 cents in savings. When
they deposited their 50 cents she would give each of them two scoops of
corn and one scoop of beans for free. She admits now that for those
first two months she was tricking them into saving with the lure of free
corn and beans. After two months, the bags were empty, but the beggars
continued to save and the free corn and beans never returned.
Another of Munros breakthroughs is that all Jamii Bora staff are former
members, previously destitute themselves.
Winning the war against poverty wont come from summoning the right
"final answers" to a handful of trivia questions to strike it rich on a
game show. Winning the war against global poverty will come when we
realize that we have one of the answers-microcredit-and summon the
political will to lift up those microcredit programs that have figured
out how to reach the worlds most destitute people. This is a final
answer we can stand behind.
******
Sam Daley-Harris is Founder of the Microcredit Summit Campaign which
seeks to reach 175 million poorest families with microcredit
www.microcreditsummit.org and of RESULTS which seeks to create the
political will to end poverty www.results.org
Please forward this message to anyone with an interest in Microcredit,
and encourage them to visit the Rotarian Action Group for Microcredit
www.ragm.org
by Sam Daley-Harris, Founder of the Microcredit Summit Campaign
When my wife and I slipped into our theater seats to watch Slumdog
Millionaire, we braced ourselves for a journey into urban slums, a world
inhabited by over one billion people globally.
But unlike the movie-goers in the theater that night who pinned their
hopes for one chai wallah (tea seller) escaping the horrors of the slums
of Mumbai, India, on the long-shot odds of his winning the Indian
version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, we knew that right now there
is a tool that has helped not just one movie character but more than 100
million of the worlds poorest people actually begin to escape the worst
devastations of poverty. That opportunity is not a game show but
microcredit-small loans to start or expand businesses like selling
tortillas or cell phone time to your neighbors. And if there was an
Oscar for assisting beggars, thieves, and prostitutes to find a
dignified route out of the slums, Id know where to look for the winner.
I wouldnt look in the cool dark of a movie theater, but in the bright,
hot sun of Nairobi where you can see the success of entrepreneurs in the
urban slums, Jami Boras "slumdog entrepreneurs." Jamii Bora, which
means good families, is a Kenyan microfinance institution that has grown
from lending money to 50 women beggars ten years ago to serving more
than 200,000 members today. One of those entrepreneurs is Joyce
Wairimu. Wairimu was one of the 50 women beggars who started Jamii Bora
with founder Ingrid Munro in 1999. Munro calls Wairimu one of the fast
climbers out of poverty. How fast? In ten years Wairimu has built six
businesses and employs 62 people.
Another of the fast climbers is Wilson Maina. Before Jamii Bora, Maina
was a thief, one of the most wanted criminals in Mathare Valley slum.
Starting with a loan of $20, Maina has built four businesses and a new
life for himself and his family. Along the way, he has convinced
hundreds of youth to get out of crime. Now thats a "lifeline" that
really matters.
Munro didnt stop at proving microcredit to help the poorest slum
dwellers. She decided to build a town with decent housing and business
space for her entrepreneurs. "Every poor persons dream is to move out
of the slums," Munro says, "not patch up the slums." On January 30th,
thats exactly what happened when the first 246 families moved out of the
slums and into the newly created Kaputiei town with nearly 1,800
families to follow. For the same monthly mortgage they had paid for
their one-room shacks, each family now lives in a home with two
bedrooms, a bath, a kitchen and a living room. But this is ultra
sub-prime lending that works because in order to qualify for a mortgage
the residents have to have successfully repaid three micro-business
loans.
Where does Munros capacity to innovate and defy conventional wisdom in
the microfinance field come from? It started 20 years ago when she and
her husband adopted three street children. It was in the fertile ground
of Munros relationship with the mothers of her sons friends in the
streets-women who were beggars- that her profound insights would grow.
When Munro, a Swedish trained architect and urban planner, retired from
the African Housing Fund in 1999, she thought she would also retire from
the little group of 50 beggar women with whom she had been working. But
when the women pled with her not leave them, Munro agreed to stay and
insisted that they must lift themselves out of poverty. For Munro that
meant the women had to start developing the discipline of saving on a
regular basis.
She had them come every Saturday with about 50 cents in savings. When
they deposited their 50 cents she would give each of them two scoops of
corn and one scoop of beans for free. She admits now that for those
first two months she was tricking them into saving with the lure of free
corn and beans. After two months, the bags were empty, but the beggars
continued to save and the free corn and beans never returned.
Another of Munros breakthroughs is that all Jamii Bora staff are former
members, previously destitute themselves.
Winning the war against poverty wont come from summoning the right
"final answers" to a handful of trivia questions to strike it rich on a
game show. Winning the war against global poverty will come when we
realize that we have one of the answers-microcredit-and summon the
political will to lift up those microcredit programs that have figured
out how to reach the worlds most destitute people. This is a final
answer we can stand behind.
******
Sam Daley-Harris is Founder of the Microcredit Summit Campaign which
seeks to reach 175 million poorest families with microcredit
www.microcreditsummit.org and of RESULTS which seeks to create the
political will to end poverty www.results.org
Please forward this message to anyone with an interest in Microcredit,
and encourage them to visit the Rotarian Action Group for Microcredit
www.ragm.org
