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Table banking entrenches peace in Rift Valley

“At the beginning there were obstacles and the fear to come together, but after some time… I forgave my attackers and we now even attend the same church,” she said.

Joseph, a Kalenjin elder in Total, agreed.

“The table banking group has brought people together, and I believe this is a good thing for the community,” he said.

Mwanzo Mwema has made an enormous difference to the life of Violet Kayanja, 35. An ethnic Luhya, in 2008 she fled with her five children to the town of Kapsabet, northwest of Total, where she stayed with relatives for three years.

When Kayanja returned to Total, she had to face people who were responsible for driving her out of her former home.

“When I came back, it was hard living and working with my neighbours who are Kalenjins,” she said.

Kayanja earns a living from a roadside stall selling vegetables,

“At times I could put my potatoes out by the highway for sale and they would pour them out [on the ground] in a bid to frustrate me. It was a very trying time,” she said.

Five months after returning to Total, Violet started saving with Mwanzo Mwema, at first putting away as little as one hundred Kenyan shillings (one dollar) at a time.

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Later on, she applied for a loan of 15,000 shillings (150 dollars) that allowed her to grow her business and buy a piece of land on which to build a new house.

She believes that as well as helping her find her feet, the Mwanzo Mwema scheme has helped foster peace in the town.

“The group has diverse membership from different tribes, and I see that in the group there is no discrimination based on tribes,” she said.

Mwanzo Mwema has proved so successful that other microfinance schemes have expressed an interest in joining up with it. However, one of the group’s requirements is that members come from different ethnic groups, and while similar schemes operate elsewhere in the Rift Valley, they lack this collaborative element.

INCENDIARY POLITICS STILL A DANGER

Recent events in Kenya have heightened fears of new tensions between ethnic groups. A spate of attacks that mostly targeted members of the Kikuyu community on the eastern coast in June left nearly 100 people dead.

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