- Research | Empower | Transform
Kambi Moto residence Hurumaresidence Huruma
26th January 2023
Interview
Interviewer: Tell us a bit about your life?
My name is Nelson Muhinga Kimani, I live at Kambi Moto. And I live in house no. 100. My mother used to live in this slum since 1982, she later moved to reserves but I remained at Kambi Moto. The project started when I was still young and when I got my national identity card, was introduced to savings. I continued saving as I was doing my own business.
Then I heard about social housing project, I continue my savings till I was named the first beneficiary in the site, I turned down that offer because I had no deposit. Later phase 2 started and when my house was constructed. Then it was house No. 51-C100, it house No.100 after KESIP. We started saving and that money was enough to keep the houses in the first phase. We started with internal loans, I was given loan from the group, I also used my own money from my own business and some other external loan I acquired from Pamoja Trust, or Akiba Mashinani Trust (AMT). I had my own Kshs.17, 000, some more Kshs.17, 000 from the group and other Kshs.17, 000 I got from the AMT. I was able to put the required deposit without using the money for the members.
We then started the strategy of giving internal loans from Muungano savings. After that we moved to Huruma Network. For example we have Huruma savings as local network comprising of six villages that are in Huruma region. We also have regional which is divide into Southern and Eastern. We are in the Eastern region and our boundary mark is at Uhuru highway. In Nairobi we have two regions: Eastern and Southern. We also other regions countrywide which forms federation which is refered to as Slums Dwellers International (SDI).
Once I travelled to South Africa to be trained on Housing Co-operation, I also travelled to India where I found that people can live into cluster in a small piece of land. If we talk about our nation for example, in our local network at Huruma, we usually issue loans which are given to people who want to start some businesses. We have two types of loans: business loans and housing loans. Business loans were given at 10% interest and there is no reducing balance. For that one a person need to put an effort because after paying Kshs.100 for the form, assessment is done and attending one more meeting, you receive your loan. Then you can start your own business, but there are those who monitors your business to make sure that you are paying back loan and if not they can find out what can act as security for that loan and can take the security of the person who is unable to pay loan. People are always happy because of that business loan because one need to fill no papers like in the banks and guarantors that are needed. Your savings act as your own guarantor.
When it comes for to the loans for construction a houses or buying land, people used to organize themselves into groups and inquire the cost of the land. If in case you are 20 people that money used to be divided among those people and then they would decide how they will pay that amount, may be into three installments. People would do their saving for about three months and then announcement would be made to members that they will be deducting money to pay loan for the land. We could do the same for two more times and people couldn’t even feel the effect. As an individual you cannot be able to buy the land it’s a must join together. And we have a slogan in which we use when we are buying something together through loan. We use fingers to clap starting with one finger up to the all five finger and the more the fingers used the louder the noise they make.
How long does a person pay the 10% interest for the business loan? And does the social housing loan have an interest?
You have asked three question at the same time, first we have business loan with 10% interest. Its payment period depend on the amount of money that a person has borrowed. For example, if I borrow a loan of Kshs. 20, 000, I will be given 6months to pay it back. And during every meeting there will a certain amount of money I am supposed to pay and if I won’t be able to pay it weekly, the full amount can be paid monthly. Still on business loan there whips to check for the people who fail to back their loan back.
Secondly, we have a land purchase loan, we usually write an agreement between the seller and us the buyer. We outlines the strategies that will be used in land payment after some inquires. We usually ask some questions before starting making our payments. Some of the question is if there will be a reducing balance, because there are some sellers with such an offer. But those who were selling to us didn’t have reducing balance but they were selling it us at cheap price. There are those who bought and divided those plots and were selling them to us.
Thirdly, it is house loan which we had planned for example for me first I got starter house which is now a one bedroom. Starter house comprised of sitting room, kitchen, store and washroom and balcony. There was three types of houses; houses with balcony, house without balcony and houses with 1 or 2 bedrooms. For example if you look at the houses in the surrounding has no balconies but the houses that are at the outer part have balconies. All those house costed differently. They also had a reducing balance, like for me I was given a period of 10years to pay my house loan back. Then I was given a loan of Kshs 250,000 to pay for my house. I have a book which I can show you, only that I don’t have it with me here. I used to make my payments monthly, every month deductions were made. Then I used to be the secretary of the group, but after election, I became among the loans officer. I was asking people money for these houses and that is always a hard task to do. And sometimes my committee and I would be force to make announcement publically like how announcement for our general election are usually done.
So as an officer I would request to one of the committee members to make to read the general report, after report is read, I then would outline the list of those who have paid and those who have not even for the past three months. For the defaulters their houses are normally closed. They will be forced to look for that money in order for their houses to be opened. And that how we managed to make those people to pay back their loans. From that we could be able to start other phases to enable other peoples to get their house.
Interviewer: Did social housing loan had an interest?
Respondent: Yes, but it was a reducing balance.
Interviewer: How these houses can grow a person economically not only by doing business but also in agribusiness?
These house are self-contained and you can even stay for a month inside there if you have your own food there, everything is there inside. On the top of these houses one can do urban agriculture, one should not plant only flowers, but in the buckets one can plant onions, tomatoes and many more. The first thing one must start poultry farming or rabbit farming, because in poultry farming one gets more profit. From selling of eggs, mature and the chickens themselves for meat. That manure will be used for organic farming because it has no chemical. And some money will be saved which could have bought the thing that are grown there. For example children used to eat the spinach I had planted there on the top, you will not need to buy eggs and during Christmas customers usually come to buy chickens for meat. I can encourage others also to start urban farming.
Interviewer: Speak about history or anything that you would like to talk about we forgot to ask you or your colleagues did not mention.
About history we had counted ourselves and we used to interchange position as I had mentioned. After I stopped being loan officer, I became in-charge surveying, mapping and housing. I used to surveyor where individual persons used to live, that would prevent double counting and would help people to identify their neighbourhoods. That time we also did counting in this village but in the neighbouring village we didn’t manage. In this village, we still did labelling in collaboration with city council and repeated the same process with KESIP. Looking at this house, you can see Serialization KAM/86 meaning Kambi Moto/86. And every individuals has cards in the county and national government with the same serial no. For example my house no. 100 will read Nelson Muhinga Kimani -100 so even if people from KESIP or County councils come here with their schedule they find that is under my name.
Interviewer: You had started with house no. 51and now you have house no. 100, were you not able to pay for that no. 51 or what happened?
Muungano had allocated me that no. 51and my neighbor was give no. 52. The houses are still there, it is now no.100. That was changed by KESIP or the government because they wanted to make sure that there are people on the ground although they did not use the same format that was used by Muungano. Although we were also involved during planning and designing by the Architect.
As you heard, we dreamt about these houses and that dream is becoming a reality today. We dreamt having a self-contained house with a good atmosphere which you are feeling now.
Interviewer: So did is only labelling that has changed but the house are the same?
The house hasn’t changed it is the same, only the managements of the village that has changed. The environment used to be untidy with a lot of nylon papers, pampers and other dirt things all over. But nowadays, when children are on holidays they usually participate in cleaning the surrounding.
Interviewer: How does the management do it?
They have started welfare group which handles any disaster in the community and also clean up. We usually make announcement for the people to do clean ups in their surrounding and in their residents. The most effective clean-up is when people start cleaning their own residents and then move to the outside. If we could do that even our nation Kenya could tidy.
Interviewer: How do you manage you garbage after its collection?
There youths who does garbage collection, they usually hang a sack on steel nail where people can put their garbage. Those youths are usually paid Kshs. 100 on date 15th every month. They usually collect the garbage twice a week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays. And when they take garbage in sacks they brings new sacks immediately. After collection of those garbage they usually take them to the dump site. And there is certain day when a lorry comes to the dump site to take them from there to a bigger dump site.
Interviewer: That shillings 100 is it paid from every house?
It is not every estate, but every house has to pay the Kshs. 100, you will also pay your own bills for the water and electricity. But we still make follow ups with people who do not pay their water bills and usually make those announcement during our meetings. That people should pay their water bill and there should be no illegal electricity connections.
Interviewer: Do you have anything else you pay in common or this is done only for garbage collection?
May be when we are connecting drainage, for example for this main drainage system there was a time NMS doing construction on that road and they were not able to finish. In order to avoid flooding we made the contributions and participated in removal of water from the surface.
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