My Work Plan : A Summary

First of all, let me just say that I cannot believe that I have already been in Kakamega for over a month. Talk about how time flies! Even scarier, however, is the thought that I only have one month left to accomplish any of my goals at work. As I mentioned in my last post, I spent a lot of time during weeks 2 and 3 formulating my work plan. How could I have a sustainable impact on KES and the Kakamega community? This was a really difficult question to answer, and after hours of deliberation I decided not to focus on just one idea, but instead to work on a series of small projects that cold improve the cooperative’s effectiveness in Kakamega.

My first objective is to facilitate the involvement of current members and the recruitment of new members. KES has over 400 members, but suffers from a very high monthly default rate due to their “goodwill” debt collection procedures in which members are expected to pay monthly without any staff or loan officers to guide them. This high rate of default is detrimental to the cooperative’s growth and I believe it needs to be addressed as soon as possible if the SACCO is to reach its goal of being fully operational by 2012. My first idea is to create a quarterly newsletter, targeted specifically at members who have been dormant for more than two months. This newsletter (only 4 pages long) is almost complete and will be ready for KES’ Annual General Meeting scheduled to occur on June 27th. In addition, I am hoping to implement new incentive programs to encourage continuous payment of loans and member recruitment. Specifically, a member who makes loan payments every month for a year (a rarity in the current records) will receive the last month’s interest free, a member who pays his shares every month for a year will get the opportunity to take out a loan at a lower interest rate (.8% monthly instead of 1%), and members who recruit new members will receive a certain amount of money for every member they bring in. Finally, I have agreed to help the SACCO design a sign to help advertise their location on the main road of the town. These are all very simple ideas, but I hope that in combination they will give KES a boost in member recruitment and involvement.

My second objective is to update their accounting systems. Currently, the bookkeeper uses Microsoft Excel for all accounts, but none of her spreadsheets are dynamic. In other words, she adds everything up with a calculator (and occasionally makes mistakes along the way) instead of using formulas (as simple as auto sum) that could calculate everything automatically. I have already worked out a good system, but my goal is not to just teach the bookkeeper to use the system that I have created. Instead, I am trying to teacher her how to create general dynamic spreadsheets – that way after I am gone she will be able to design efficient systems of data management using excel as the need arises.

Thirdly, I am working with KES’ microfinance sector to jumpstart a new group of boda boda drivers. This is probably the part of my project that I am most excited about. A boda boda is essentially a bicycle taxi, who shuttles people around all day for about 15 cents per trip on average. Most of the drivers (there are hundreds of them) have no other way of making a living – many have even finished high school or university but just don’t have any other career options. Our goal is to get a group of 15 boda bodas to start saving monthly for four months, after which they will have the opportunity to take out a small business loan. After this loan is paid back, they will eventually take out a bigger loan and will thus be given the opportunity to work their way up out of poverty.

At first I was unsure that we would be able to get a group of bodas interested in this kind of project – as a matter of fact KES tried to implement this kind of project with an FSD intern last year and the project was ultimately unsuccessful – but last week I was happy to find that my fears were unfounded. I met with the bodas for the first time on Friday, and it was probably the most powerful experience I have had since coming to Kenya. We met for about an hour in a small hot room, with someone translating what I was saying sentence by sentence into Kiswahili and then translating their questions back into English. After their skepticism had been assuaged (many Kenyan workers have been victims of fraudulent pyramid schemes), I could sense the excitement and nervousness in their tone of voice. Nobody had ever before put their faith in the hands of these boda drivers, and I believe they saw in this newfound trust an opportunity to change their lives. Contrary to my expectations, they were very proactive about organizing their next meeting time and even asked if they could bring new members. At the next meeting (July 3rd) we will go over/amend the group constitution, and elect officers (chairman, treasurer, secretary).

My final project involves evaluating the KES Strategic Management Plan that was created in 2007. In the SMP, KES has set specific goals for each year from 2008 to 2012 (ie. number of members, amount of capital etc.) and I plan to go through their records and make a report detailing their progress.

In the end, I hope that some if not all of my projects will be sustainable, and will help KES to reach the goals outlined in their SMP. I’ll be sure to post updates on my progress!

Weeks 2, 3

It’s been a while since my first blog post, and A LOT has happened in the last two weeks, but I’ll try to keep it short and sweet (but no promises). Last Monday was everybody’s first day at their host organizations – the first week was dedicated solely to observation of our host organizations, under the principle that we need to understand the basic operations of our respective organizations before we can begin to plan/implement any kind of project. As I mentioned in the last post, my organization is the Kakamega Entrepreneurs Savings and Credit Cooperative (KES SACCO), an institution started and run by its members that provides small loans and savings services to the Kakamega small business community.

Anyway, the first week was really different to what I had expected. My organization consists of a bookkeeper (Naomi), a secretary (Elizabeth) and a series of committees that ultimately run the organization. However, the bookkeeper and the secretary are the only real KES staff members, as all the committee members are unpaid elected officials who have other jobs outside of the organization. As such, I had very little guidance the first week and got by mostly by finding materials like annual reports, balance sheets, and program initiatives to read in an attempt to learn about the organization and its operations. I also spent a lot of time doing research on general microfinance ideas at the internet café. Additionally, the people here run on what they like to call “Kenyan time” which sounds nice but generally means that they are productive for about 30 minutes a day, play a lot of solitaire on the computer, and are rarely (if ever) on time for an appointment. This can be really frustrating, especially when you are trying to get something done in a reasonable amount of time. Luckily, however, I was somewhat comforted by the fact that just about all of my friends were experiencing the same issues at their offices and when we met for lunch that first week everybody had their own stories and we had a lot to talk about.

This week, on the other hand, I met with the treasurer and he made me a bunch of appointments to meet with the chairman of the credit committee, the chairman of the microfinance committee and many others so I have been relatively busy. He also gave me a copy of the organization’s strategic management plan created in 2007, which helped me to understand where the organization stands right now and its goals for the future. By the end of this week I have to create a detailed work plan detailing what I intend to do for the rest of my trip and as I write this I am well on my way towards completing it and will post it when it is finished.

Work aside, everything has been going really well and we have had plenty of time to immerse ourselves in the local culture. Walking through town every day is probably the best experience of all, as it seems that for the local population encountering “mzungus” (aka us) never gets old. Girls on the trip routinely encounter marriage proposals, so many of them have started to wear bands on their left ring fingers to minimize these kinds of encounters. There is a guy named Jack (who I’m pretty sure is drunk most of the time) who I made the mistake of telling my name to and he stops me in the street every day in an attempt to hold my hand and follow me where I am going (which naturally freaks me out a little bit) although hand holding is customary among male friends in Kenya (which is funny because you will often see two strong, middle aged men walking down the street holding hands). The food is still pretty standard wherever you go – generally beef or chicken and rice or ugali, although we have encountered a few exceptions. In the market, for example, they sell termites, which are apparently a delicacy in this part of Kenya. Also, one of my friends ordered “motumbo” at a restaurant not knowing what it was but wanting to try something new and it seemed like mushrooms so just about everyone tried it. I learned later that motumbo is cow intestines.

My homestay is also going really well, and I get to know my family more and more each day. I also learned last week that the high-pitched howling outside my window at night (which at first was kind of disturbing) is being made by a litter of 11 puppies that one of their dogs gave birth to 3 weeks ago. They are probably the cutest puppies I have ever seen, and every day after work I generally go outside and play with them for a while – other people in my group have also come to my house to play with the puppies so they are quite an attraction. On Saturday evening, Austin (one of the work boys at my house) brought me to the local stadium, which consists of a dirt quarter mile track and a soccer (football) field. There was a track meet there that night, and I saw the winning team run a men’s 4X400m relay in 3 minutes and 20 seconds (barefoot) which if nothing else corroborates the stereotype that Kenyans are really really fast.

On Saturday morning the group had its first weekly meeting where we talked about the many aspects of living and working in Kenya and cooked a delicious American meal of mac and cheese and beans. There were a lot of funny stories – my favorite was a girl who had tried to explain to her family (who did not speak English) that she wanted to take a bucket shower but they did not understand. She went to boil water for the shower, and her mother followed her into the kitchen area and threw tealeaves into the boiling water! I almost died when I heard that story. Locals here tend to be very Christian and it seems that some people have had awkward situations when they told their families/co-workers that they were not Christian, but I have not personally had any experience with that as my family is very tolerant although they don’t understand what it means when I say that I am Jewish.

Monday was a public holiday (Madaraka day – the day Kenya gained internal rule, but different to independence day) so this weekend 12 of the 15 of us went to the Kakamega Rainforest, which was awesome. We stayed in these bungalo-like houses in the middle of the forest and did two 4 hour hikes – a river hike on Sunday afternoon, and a sunrise hike at 4 am on Monday morning. It was a lot of fun, and a really nice break from living in town. We saw lots of monkeys, birds, and just beautiful scenery in general – watching the sunrise from the highest point in Kakamega I couldn’t help but be reminded of the opening scene of the Lion King – it was amazing. Also the stars were insane – you could see almost every constellation I have heard of and even a planet or two without any telescope. After the sunrise hike we had brunch at the Rondo Retreat which is the closest thing to an American/British resort in this part of Kenya, and it was delicious.

Other than that not much else to tell – I’ve been reading a lot and recently finished Banker to the Poor by Muhammad Yunnus which was really informative and helpful and I’m finishing up The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz which is a great story. After dinner the family generally has tea and watches TV, but recently the TV stopped working and we have resorted to their small collection of DVD’s which includes a compilation movie called “Spells and Magic” (4 Harry Potter and 3 Lord of the Rings movies) “Nicholas Cage” (Face/Off and Ghost Rider) and many episodes “WWE Monday Night Raw”. I gave them a coffee table book about Florida which they enjoy looking at often – my host dad is particularly amazed by the 4 mile long Sunshine Skyway bridge, which he says he would love to see someday. Personally, when I think of the skyway I think of two words – traffic jam – talk about cultural differences.