Women’s Enterprises International (WEI) works in rural communities of drought and famine plagued, Eastern Kenya, where the lack of water is a constant threat. In 2000, WEI partnered with its first women’s group to bring clean water to each of 37 families via water catchment systems (cisterns) to harvest rainwater at each home. To date, WEI has brought clean water to over 700 families and is actively partnering with 41 groups, serving 1,200 families, reaching over 8,400 people. Abundant, clean water eliminates waterborne disease and liberates women and girls from the daily search for water, freeing girls to go to school and women to earn income.
Social Innovation
Leveraging the Kenyan practice of Harambee, where communities work together to fund local projects, and the U.S. business practice of financial matching, WEI has pioneered a highly effective, non-paternalistic, sustainable development model that is transforming women’s lives from abject poverty to lives of hope and upward economic mobility.
Core Elements of the WEI Model:
- Women’s “Solidarity” Groups
- Partnership
- Micro-savings
- Financial Match
WEI works through organized women’s groups, of 20 to 40 members, committed and accountable to one another to solve shared problems.
WEI partners with these groups, each partner assuming specific responsibilities. WEI provides training in group formation and governance, project definition, proposal writing, and project management. Groups write proposals, and define and manage projects. Both partners share financial responsibility for the projects.
WEI provides a powerful incentive via a financial match. WEI invests financially in a project only after groups tangibly demonstrate their commitment by earning and saving 50% of the cost of each 10,000 liter water tank. Tanks remain “group” property until all families have a working system.
Impact
WEI’s model, leveraging culturally and technically appropriate solutions, training, and results-driven incentives, equips groups to solve their most pressing problems. Through success, individuals realize they can improve their lives. Many become leaders in their communities and spontaneously spread the program to neighbors.
Replicable and Scalable
Success breeds success. New WEI groups are forming at an accelerating rate; from one group in 2000, to six in 2005, to over 40 today, representing a 44.5% per year growth rate. Factors, common across East Africa, contributing to replicability include:
- Harambee and women’s groups are ingrained in rural community culture.
- Requirements for individual and group participation are readily accepted.
- A culture of sharing motivates group leaders to help form and train new groups facilitating rapid growth and minimizing need for new WEI staff.
- Harvesting rainwater is a broadly applicable solution.
Sustainable
WEI’s model is naturally self-sustaining. Through the process of starting and completing a project, groups experience success from saving and achieving what was once believed impossible. With each successive project, a hard-earned belief in themselves and the power of working together grows. Therefore, the need for the incentive of a WEI match becomes progressively less important with each successive group project. Eventually, groups self-fund 100% of their projects from their own group savings.
