Founder

Born In 1959,she has a friendly demeanor very simple in nature, extremely hard working and always ready with solutions

She is a mother, a grandmother of 15 and great grandmother of 4, and this is her life story out of poverty.

Jecinta Wanjiku was born in present day Maranga county and migrated to Mathare slum in Nairobi at a very early age where her parent lived and traded in alcohol sale Muratina and Busaa (traditional illegal brews) She attended Mathare Primary school up-to Class 7 where she sat for her CPE certificate ,though she passed well ,she was unable to proceed to high school due to financial problems her mother had other 10 children to fend for.

Jecinta Wanjiku Married early any had gotten her fist born by 1979 and had continued with her family’s business .

The breakthrough

Jecinata met Mama Ingrid Munro at St. Theresa Parish Eastleigh, in Nairobi, through the initiative of the late Father Arnold Grol. Mama Ingrid gave a talk on how to get out poverty and Mathare Valley. By then they had formed Humama, Heri,Upendo,Machuma and Makao women groups. she belonged to Heri women group. Mama Ingrid took ten of them for training at Intermediate technology workshop in Karen for production of roofing tiles and building blocks.

When they came back now professionals in the production of roofing tiles and building blocks they were engaged to produce for Komorock housing estate in Nairobi.

In 1988 Jecinta was noted for her hard work and was among the chosen to travel to Birmingham In the United Kingdom for further training in the production of roofing tiles and building blocks and machine handling, sponsored by African Housing Fund where Mama Ingrid was the maninging director

When she came back, they started training other women groups in Nairobi Kenya how to manufacture roofing tiles and building blocks for sale to earn a living .

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.”