
Legacy
“I hope to do as much as possible to help poor people and inspire the young people to keep this movement growing it is possible “
Founder
Mama Ingrid Munro, was born on 25 March 1941 in Norrköping, Sweden, she is a Swedish architect who is the founder and manager Jamii Bora Trust a microfinance organization based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Life
Mama Ingrid trained as an architect and graduated at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1964.
From 1979 to 1984 she headed the Swedish council of building research, a government agency and the first woman in Sweden to do so at her age.
The United Nations proclaimed 1987 to be the “International year of shelter for the homeless” and Mama Ingrid ,was appointed to convince governments to enact housing reforms.
After her UN job a number of African governments offered her to lead the intergovernmental organization African Housing Foundation, which she led from 1988 till 1999. She then began her career as an advocate for the poor in Kenya, pressing for their right to housing.
Her father was a missionary and medical doctor and a Missionary in present day Zimbabwe. She her is a Christian, and Jamii Bora equally serves the Christians and Muslims living in Kenya
Birth of Jamii Bora
In 1999, upon Munro's retirement, she founded Jamii Bora along with 50 women beggars, loaning them twice as much as they agreed to save. Mama Ingrid says she came to know the women after she and her husband Bob Munro, a Canadian, and founder of Mathare Youth Sports Association adopted first one boy Waithaka who had lived on the streets of Nairobi, then his two brothers, beginning in 1988. The New Yorker quotes her as saying, "It was a small seven-year-old boy who more or less adopted us....And then we later found his two brothers and adopted them. With a situation like that, like in all great love stories, in literature and in real life, you are a helpless victim, you know?" .
We had started working with the mothers of Waithaka’s friends in the streets of Nairobi.The women came to me and said, “Mama you can’t abandon us.” We started what I thought would be a small club of street beggars in March 1999, but it grew like a bushfire. I asked the 50 women to save 50 Kenya Shillings (about USD 75 cents) per week. We wanted to start with a savings culture because they were all beggars and might run away with their first loan. I promised a loan for double the amount they had saved.
Slum Alleys
Mama Ingrid can walk through any slum in Nairobi without fear for her security. She is known and loved by the street people who she has always been good to. She is considered a white-skinned African.” Every person we met with spoke of “Mama Ingrid” with such sincere adoration and bade us pray for her long life and good health.
Getting out of poverty
The poverty stricken people first need to believe in themselves and believe that they can get out of poverty. All of our staff in our beggars program are former street beggars themselves. They say, “If I can make it, I don’t see why you can’t make it.” Then they can move into micro-finance, and they climb up the ladder.
The Gender Question.
The difference between women and men is that the women have to toil every day because they have to make sure their kids have something to eat every day, while the men are dreaming about big business ,cars and houses they are not ready for. In Jamii bora we welcome men and women and If both husband and wife can be involved, it is better.
Jamii bora exponential growth.
We grew to 350,000 members. The Central Bank of Kenya decided that all micro-finance organizations had to be registered. We were able to buy the smallest bank City Finance Bank of Kenya and converted it into Jamii Bora Bank in March 2010.
The bank was not able to support the poor members across the country. We then decided we needed to have a savings and credit cooperative to serve the poor members. The cooperative was formed by the members who were not supported by the bank. We recently changed the name of the cooperative to Yawezekana, which means “It is possible.”