Current Statement

July 18, 2025

The Walking with Africans Foundation (WAF) received a new lease of life in 2024 following two visits to Kenya by members of Burke Presbyterian Church in 2023 and 2024. These visits, which were to strengthen the existing special partnership between Burke PC and Clifton PC with the PCEA Kibwezi Parish, generated renewed interest in the microfinance program in the Kibwezi district.  As a result, the WAF board has now some new members including Jill Conley, Greg Diggs, Karyn Niles, and Andy Pettigrew.  Together with David Norman, these fresh minds have reinvigorated the service to our partners in Kenya and Malawi.

This comes at a crucial time when Ed Parker and I were already in the process of planning for an exit strategy and retirement.  It also comes at a time when our partners, the eight table banking groups in Kibwezi, Kenya and seven in Mzimba, are increasingly showing signs of viability and self-sustenance.  As a clear sign of success, two groups in Kenya, Tiundu Mwoona and Amani Women’s Group have together invested and funded three new “baby” groups, and their loans have already been repaid.  Another group, Wiwano Wa Kivute, was identified by the local government of Makueni County as a credible and cohesive entity for empowering this rural community and provided them with a sisal processing machine for which they have employed three men.  This group together with the Imani Women’s Group, not only survived the Covid 19 pandemic but are now thriving.

The same success story is happening to the table banking groups in Malawi.  Although only one group has invested in a new, “baby” group that we are yet to see, the most productive and perhaps prosperous group is the Sunganani Group whose revolving loan amount is now four times the initial WAF grant. One or two members are exporting animal feed to Botswana, quite an impressive feat for this poor rural community.  Meanwhile, the Edingeni Women’s Forum has been identified by another organization and won a one-year contract for a school feeding program.  This group is also being utilized as a vehicle to fight gender-based abuse in the local community.

The original microfinance program in Kenya replicated, to a significant degree, programs under the Grameen Foundation/Bank and, in this case, ultimate viability was to be achieved when the number of clients reached a break-even point.  The rate of interest, although lower than commercial banks was set at a level that would eventually make the local partner in Kibwezi, Efforts of the Poor in Development (EPID-Kenya), self-supporting. Since the repayments were usually small, but made at regular intervals, defaults were minimal.  Following  a series of unfortunate and unavoidable situations that impacted our coordinator  and EPID-Kenya partner in Kibwezi, this partnership model and relationship was dissolved.  WAF finally transitioned to table banking model in 2019. The key, underpinning concept in these table banking groups is the reinforcement of ownership: the groups begin by contributing their own resources to their loan revolving funds which they sometimes refer to as shares; they also determine the rate of interest charged to individual loans. They set their own rules of procedure often with the help of our paid coordinators in the field and register with the government as community-based organization (CBO).

One highlight in 2023 and 2024 was the provision of smart phones to each of the groups.  These phones are being used to transmit reports of their activities to the WAF directly.

In the light of this discernible self-sustaining evidence, it became easy and clear for Ed and me to plan our retirement, notwithstanding possible improvements and deepening of table banking as indeed another path in fighting poverty.  This underscores the attraction by these new members who would like to see greater visibility of the program, especially as preparations are underway for visits in the future.

James Munthali