Below are a compilation of Community Inclusion Currency (CIC) user stories from Grassroots Economics Field Support Engineers (Emmanuel Mbui, Amina Godana, Janet Akinyi and Joyce Kamau) supporting and working with Red Cross volunteers and community groups. Implementation with Red Cross volunteers led by Bahero Mohamed through door to door awareness …
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Grassroots Economics has a New Director: Shaila Agha
When I was 9 years old, my mother came home one day with a monopoly board game. It was the beginning of the March holidays and she wanted to provide us with an alternative activity to watching cartoons. Every day after that, my brother and I would insistently play game …
Kakuma Refugee Testimonial
After after hearing about sarafu local leaders of a small community group started building a support network in their community. Nyota explains below how after living in the refugee camp for 10 years, Sarafu has helped her to maintain trade with her community and grow their collective farming even when …
Recycling Debt (Kusaga Deni, Kubali Sarafu)
Imagine having to endure constant reminders and threatening messages from predatory lenders your entire life.
Imagine going out of business because you’ve loaned out too many of your products to people in need.
This is daily life here in Kenya
Debtors suffer: People are taking on debts from payment …
Refugee Economics in Kakuma Kenya
Short description of FHE community based organization.
dear sir/madam
Greetings, I'm MARCELIN MUNGA PETRO a Congolese by nationality being recognized under UNHCR as a refugee in side kakuma refugee camp.
I'm the founder and CEO of FHE organization that mean Farming and Health Education, the organization include 31 members …
Kilifi Kenya - a hub for Community Driven Basic Income
The current reality is that following Covid-19 many have fallen deeper and deeper into debt. However, most individuals would still not openly disclose this reality to avoid the negative connotation that comes with owing. Imagine a world where household debt is no longer an individual burden, but rather a tool …
2020 Kenyan CICs Review
Brief Historical Overview
Starting in 2010 Grassroots Economics worked with local communities to issue vouchers aka Community Currencies (CCs) as a medium of exchange with the belief that CCs could enable communities to develop a source of local credit based on productive capacity and local values, while creating a monetary …
Youth Employment via Elderly/Vulnerable Support
Using a basic income (Sarafu in Kenya) youth can support their elderly and vulnerable by giving them their Sarafu. Then those elderly/vulnerable in turn spend it with other youth run businesses, who could in turn give it to their elderly/vulnerable - who could, in turn, spend it on other …
Municipal Basic Income(MBI) via CIC
A municipality, town or local administration is an ideal issuer and anchor for a basic/guaranteed income because the have the means to back it and the intention to build sustainable and thriving local markets– Such a Municipal Basic Income (MBI) can in turn act as a growth medium and …
Static vs Bonded Liquidity Pools for CICs
As communities create their Community Inclusion Currencies as a credit against their future production, projects and excess capacity, Grassroots Economics is looking at various ways to connect these tokens together and as well to other networks. Below I'll describe and contrast two approaches, namely a Fixed vs Algorithmic Rate liquidity …