With an amazing march through the slum, starting from Congo and ending at Gatina Primary School the entire community has been mobilized around their own Community Currency Gatina-Pesa. Hon. Simba Arati, the area Minister of Parliament, officially cut the ribbon and launched the program. With an 107 initial registrations from local businesses the Gatina community has a strong start.

Thanks so much to all those who supported the Indiegogo Campaign as well as Nyendo-lernen and the Chiemgauer from Germany for supporting this program, as well as so many others. What is different? People at a grassroots level are able to create, back-up and issue their own currency supported with their own goods and services.

This is not how money creation normally works. Instead of money coming from debt this Community Currency supports free trade and poverty reduction. Gatina-Pesa has spread out of schools in the area so that local parents can pay their school fees with their goods and services via a mututal-credit voucher (Gatina-Pesa) as a means of exchange. Teachers can then get better salaries and use the Gatina-Pesa at more than 100 shops in the community where it continues to circulate. Each member of Gatina-Pesa also pledges 200 Gatina-Pesa to a community fund so that youth can be paid for waste collection and more children can have their school fees paid for. This is how a community learns to support itself.