Financial Literacy for Rural Women

Women are the backbone of rural economies in Kenya. They ensure the wellbeing of their families through incomes derived from the small businesses they run. 

However, they lack the capacity, support, and acceptance to profitably run these businesses. They lack the skills on how to measure business performance, assess their financial positions, negotiate for inexpensive credit facilities, and to enable them to identify profitable business opportunities. As a result, many of the business collapse in their formative years.

Our solution aims at training rural women already organized in self-help groups so that they can gain the business acumen they need to manage their businesses, dig up entrepreneurial opportunities, and assess the quality of the credit they apply for.

When scaled, the training will contribute towards women social and economic empowerment, poverty reduction in rural areas and gender equality due to a democratized resource ownership space.

In Kenya, the poverty level of Kenyan women lies above 50 percent with the rural women being the most impoverished. In 2017, the Global Findex database by the World Bank reported an estimated 1.7 billion underbanked adults out of which over 980 million were women.

Thanks to the self-help group movement in Kenya, many of them have joined savings and table banking groups where they access credit to start small village-based businesses.

While the self-help groups have a survival rate of about 97%, the businesses that sprout of these groups barely reach their third year. they collapse of remain dwarfed for the rest of their lifetime with no capacity to scale.

Among the many reasons contributing to this problem is the lack of targeted financial literacy and entrepreneurship training. For instance, access to credit has largely improved. However, many financial institutions reaching out to rural women to market their credit facilities, don't pair these facilities with proper business training. The result is a lack of financial knowledge causing most of the women to defaulting on their loans, getting into more toxic debt thereby feeding the vicious cycle of poverty. 

The women financial literacy and entrepreneurship program we are proposing to roll out will help rural women enhance their financial literacy skills through in person coaching at group level. The trainings are group customized to meet specific financial needs which also include but not limited to linking the women to financial institutions and organizations to scale their business activities.

The training will involve among other things basic business management skills such as record keeping, personal finance management, investing, tax literacy and business organization, business performance evaluation, business asset management and protection, cash flow management, and loan evaluation.

To entrench entrepreneurial discipline, our solution proposes training of idea validation, business scaling, and building of synergies among similar or complementing businesses to access a wider market.

Value chain and business model training will be offered at a basic level, broken down into easy-to-digest modules covering areas sch as customer segmentation, value proposition, customer relationship, revenue management, cost analysis and so forth.

Apart from entrenching these skills directly to entrepreneurs, we will also have a training of trainers (ToT) model to fast-track up-skilling in areas such as computer literacy and the use of cell phones to take notes and keep records.

Our focus is on women aged 18 years and above who are organized into self-help groups in the rural areas of Kenya. The targeted beneficiaries usually have weekly or monthly meetings where they contribute money that act as their savings. These women do need training on how to utilize their savings to empower themselves through financial literacy a skill that most lack. With the financial literacy training proposed by the program, the women will be able to:

• Increase their income leading to reduced poverty incidences contributing to the attainment of SDG 1.
• Improved livelihood coupled with reduced gender parity as women’s financial inclusion will increase enhancing the achievement of SDG 5
• Build knowledge banks within rural communities to serve as centers of innovation and business training.
• Enhance a collaborative support framework between rural inclined financial institutions and the women who need the financial resources to grow.
• Link county governments with the local social empowerment initiatives for visibility and further support
• Contribute towards policy on financial at national and regional level 

Our solution targets the creation of inclusive entrepreneurship beginning with the marginalized in rural communities. Without affirmatively and laser targeted financial training in a language they understand, these women will remain victims to predatory lending and poor business decisions.

Rural areas have an untapped potential to create wealth and rewarding jobs. However, for that to happen, appropriate training must be administered that combine saving and considered investment opportunities.

In the spirit of not leaving anyone behind and cushioning the rural poor, entrepreneurship and financial literacy has such a huge role to play this proposal contributes to that.

We are certainly not the first and we won't be the last to offer financial literacy and entrepreneurship training. There are other who are already doing this but at different scales and targeting different groups. Here are some of the competitors we have identified.

Kenya Financial Education Centre: This organization offers business coaching, financial literacy, and entrepreneurship training to employees, and businesspeople in the MSME sector.

NurtureSmart: In collaboration with The National Financial Educators Council (NFEC), NurtureSmart offres certified training on finali education and literacy across Kenya.

Our solution is different and innovative in several ways.

1. Targeted- We target rural women who are already in self-help groups and accessing credit and saving facilities

2. It combines practical day to day experiences with theory to come up with solid take homes for each session that are immediately implementable.

3. ToT model- we are not profit seeking but rather to create a sustainable ecosystem when knowledge sharing passes from one person or group to another. When ultimately the community rises up and economic opportunities expand, the demand for our trainings especially at a much-advanced level will increase and for this we can then charge a small fee for it.

The training will be delivered in person using the most basic tools. However, the lessons will be repackaged and delivered through app and web-based platform for the groups to login and learn right from their phones.

We shall also implement USSD code access for feature phones so that people can get this information at anytime and anywhere.

The knowledge centers that we shall build will help reinforce the training and cultivate a general literacy culture among rural communities. 

Learning through phones especially during COVID times has been explored in Kenya. Safaricom, the leading telco in Kenya has collaborated with schools and universities to offer free internet access to rural based students to access learning platforms right from their mobiles. 

Knowledge centers in Kenya has been built among rural communities among the Maasai to train communities of basic literacy and push for anti-FGM practices.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHIAhZJd3yc

https://retouch.is/the-story-of-the-container-library/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/dec/04/davidsmith.theobserver

Goal
Improved particpation in business activities
Increased income
Reduced vulnerability in rural areas

Outcome 
1. Increase the access to and use of financial services by the rural poor

2. Self-help groups enabled/facilitated to collaborate and enter partnerships

Outputs
1. Potential of existing self-help groups to establish sustainable operations enhanced
2. Self-help groups formalized and registered
3. Mature self-help groups assisted to expand their operations 
4. Contributed to the creation of a conducive environment for the development of inclusive financial services in rural areas

We are not yet operational

1. At least 30% of the rural poor in the selected project intervention areas with improvements in business ownership

2. 20% reduction in the prevalence of failed women-led businesses

3. Improved women’s empowerment in business and entrepreneurship

1. Financial: In adequate access to inexpensive credit facilities for the self-help groups. Most of the credit is advanced at a commercial rate. The grants and other subsidized credit facilities are often inadequate and taken up by the urban population.

2. Technical: Some of the trainings will require that the self-help groups have access to computer equipment or are able to understand information technology

3. Cultural: Financial empowerment of women is not supported by some communities in Kenya reason being that the male gender fears losing dominance over society.

4. Market: Expanded economic opportunities require a ready and well-developed market to take up the goods and service. In most rural areas, markets are not readily available or not as developed.

Financial barriers: We shall reach out to county governments and forge partnerships with banks to make available cheaper credit.

2. Technical: We shall do basic technology literacy training and use projectors to reduce the need of investing so much in computers and other IT equipment

3. Cultural:  We shall do community sensitization before we roll our programs. This will enhance acceptability.

4. Market: We shall connect the local communities with national and regional markets for their products.

n/a

The organization has not begun operating as yet.

However, we are a team of 5 people.

Joyreen Wanyeki

Joyreen is a monitoring and evaluation expert possessing a
wealth of knowledge in finance and programme
management in development cooperation. She holds a
Bachelor of Economics and Statistics, a Certified Public
Accountant (CPA) and is currently pursuing Master in
Economics Cooperation & Human Development at Kenyatta
University in Kenya.

Fenton Okoth
Fenton is a Kenyan national with a rich bi-cultural
background and focus on community collaborations.
He has had several volunteer opportunities and community
leadership roles. Fenton received his Bachelor of
Economics and Statistics at Kenyatta University and
currently pursuing a Master in Economics Cooperation &
Human Development at Kenyatta University.

Mercy Nyakangi
Mercy is a Master of Economics, Cooperation and Human
Development (MECOHD) candidate at the Kenyatta
University under the FAI Scholarship. She has a bachelor’s
degree in Arts with an Economics major from Kenyatta
University. Her current research focuses on women
economic empowerment through women groups in Kenya.
She has a passion for gender equality and creating safe
spaces for all especially the girl child to ensure sustainable
development in the rural poor areas in Kenya. 


Thomas Mbaru
Thomas is a Bachelor of commerce-Finance Holder from the
University of Nairobi, currently pursuing a Master in
Economics Cooperation and Human Development from
Kenyatta University. His Passion is finance and small
business management has seen him set up and preside over
several community-based economic empowerment
initiatives mostly in ASAL areas.

Lawrence Kinuthia
Lawrence is an MSc Applied Economics student at
Kenyatta University, Nairobi Kenya. He holds a Bsc in
Project Planning & Management from Moi University,
Kenya. His current research interest is on housing access
among the low-income earners in urban areas in Kenya –
on which his dissertation is based on.

We have no partners at the moment

Our business model

Customer segment: We are targeting rural women who are in self-help groups

Value proposition: Provision of free but quality tailored financial literacy and entrepreneurial skills in the local setting in a mode and language they understand.

Delivery: The training will be delivered in person at the women group level during their bi-weekly meetings

Revenue: The trainings will be free of cost for the groups, however, if any of them wants access to our digital platform or branded materials they will pay a small fee. Also, we shall a small subscription fee from each of the groups charged semi-annually. For shall get a commission from financial institutions for every loan approved.

Key resources: We shall need to hire transport to carry equipment to training sites. Also, we will need resources to develop the ap and web platform to the industry standards of safety and ease of use.

Key partnerships: We are looking at partnering with organizations like Plan International, World Vison and County governments.

We are looking at two ways

1. Own generated revenue: This is through commissions, subscription fees, and sell of training materials 

2. Donations and grants

We are looking at empowering women socially and economically by expanding their entrepreneurial and business management skills.

When women are empowered, rural livelihoods will improve, and assets holdings become democratized. 

Financial barriers will be overcome, and cultural barriers as well will open up leading to gender tolerant societies where every voice counts.

Generally, the field of training in Kenya especially for rural projects hardly sustains itself. This is because most of these groups cannot afford to financially sustain such kind of training.

Therefore, we are looking for a partner to help us develop the financial literacy delivery software and a proprietary mobile app

Also, for logistic purposes, we are looking at getting a vehicle to help us move into the interior.

World Vision: they have been working in rural Kenya for an exceptionally long time and know more about these communities and their livelihoods. We want to tap into that familiarity.

MIT faculty: To help us in the development of the software in the second phase of our project.

Our training is focused on women with an aim to liberate them from financial poverty and make them entrepreneurs. This will give them a voice in society.

Women who are among the marginalized in Africa will get top skills to enhance financial inclusion and empowerment. Empowered women will also empower their families.

Part of our training is dedicated to adult literacy as most of the rural folks are not educated.