Karanja women Group

Karanja women Group is a beneficiary of the Uwezo Fund. The group is located in Kibra constituency, Makina Ward, in Nairobi County. The group is composed of 42 members.
The group was started as a group of jobless mothers seeking to pull together funds and empower themselves. It started as merry-go -round of Kshs 100, which later graduated to table banking. The group joined and applied Uwezo Fund in the year 2017 upon sensitization about the fund and received the Wezesha loan of Kshs 50,000.After successful repayment, the group received 2nd refinancing of Kshs 200,000   in the year 2021 and repaid successfully. The group is currently in waiting for the processing of the third Endeleza product that they applied for.
The group’s income generating activities include loaning out soft loans to members to repay at 5% interest. They own rental structures at Bombululu that generate income for the group. Additionally, they make their own   African made Ankara bags-laptop bags, shoulder bags, beadwork, and African made earrings. They are currently practicing table banking with the money revolving among its members to empower the members with individual businesses to access a group loan payable with interest
Lillian Mosoba, representing the women group at the Nairobi international Trade fair lauded the Fund for financially empower empowering their journey of transitioning from a simple merry-go-round to making their own custom-made kitenge products; further creating employment for them and the employees they have incorporated. She further highlighted how through the Fund members have been empowered and have been able to be a chain of financially independent women. Through the fund, the members have overtime been empowered to sustain themselves and their family additionally providing employment to other women in Kibra. She urged people to register their groups with social services to formalize and be able to receive funding from government. Additionally, being a successful beneficiary of the Fund, she called out youth, women and PWD Groups in Kibra and all constituencies to apply for Uwezo Fund and empower themselves for it is accessible and has favorable terms.
During the interview, she applauded the favorable terms of the Fund including the six months grace period that gives ample time for repaying the loan especially with the zero interest rate on it. Lillian urged borrowers to repay to be able to access refinancing by the Fund and to improve their credit score to be able to grow and access all the affirmative funds made available by the government to empower Kenyans.