Transforming Mission: Knocking on Doors

African Christian Church and Schools Urban Ministries

Project Officer, John Njihiak

Where do you start? Nairobi is the largest city in East Africa with sprawling areas of urban poverty. As the ACC&S wanted to respond to the needs of their neighbours, they could have literally gone in a thousand different directions. But three years ago, through prayer and discussion with its urban churches, the ACC&S started to knock on doors in the community of Dandora.

Dandora is an area well known for its health and sanitation problems. Overcrowded with dilapidated houses connected by narrow mud pathways with open sewers, Dandora is one of Nairobi's informal settlements perched on the edge of the city's largest dumpsite. Children play amongst the heaps of garbage and putrid waters. Families struggle to pay their rent and provide for their basic needs. There are great challenges for the people living in Dandora.

In 2014, the ACC&S began to mobilize men and women living in this area. They began simply by walking through the community and knocking on doors. They were open about who they were and that they wanted to understand the struggles that their neighbours were facing. John Njihiak was a part of that early work with our CBM colleagues Wayne and Maureen Morgan who were working with the ACC&S urban churches at that time.

The product of that work was the formation of self help groups that brought together men and women of similar economic backgrounds and helped them to form weekly support groups modeled from the SHG program that Erica had started in the areas of Eastleigh and Kariobangi. Through SHG training, the groups began to follow healthy SHG patterns: they formed constitutions, created a weekly meeting tradition, started saving money and issuing soft loans through table banking. As the groups formed essential bonds of trust and ownership, they received microenterprise training, opened bank accounts, and started small businesses together.

 Erica visiting with the "Hardworkers Malisaba Self Help Group"

 The groups are self-governed through participatory leadership, 

as members take turns facilitating the meetings.

SHG Member Passbook

Everyone keeps an individual passbook, to track the group savings, personal contributions, and loans. This serves as a way of mutual accountability as the group members are able to verify the treasurer's records and bank statements each week. It was encouraging to see how in only a few years most of these groups have built up thousands of dollars of savings as they invest in individual and group businesses.

 Unity Self Help Group, Dandora

Today the ACC&S urban ministry program has established twenty-four functioning self-help groups in the community of Dandora. Through the support of John and the team of community facilitators, the groups are improving the household incomes and well-being of hundreds of families.

At each meeting, we had time to share and pray together. Each group faces a myriad of challenges, but common to each group is a sense of belonging and strength that comes from having a circle of people who care and watch out for you. Every group develops its own patterns and traditions that make the meetings fun and personal.

It is amazing to realize that the warmth and community in these groups started with a knock on the door, and an invitation by a stranger.

Erica and Lenny with members of the Unity SHG

During one of the meetings with one of the Muslim Self Help Groups in Eastleigh, our CBM colleague Lenny Mbogo asked a group what it would mean if they were to continue without CBM. To our surprise, a group member responded saying, "We would be like a bird without wings."

Given how self-sufficient the groups are and the fact that they have received training but no funding from CBM, we were confused. Erica asked the woman to tell us more about what she meant. "We would be like a bird without wings," she said, "because we need your encouragement. That is what is most important to us. Your encouragement!"

At the heart of self help ministries we find again and again the importance of relationships of care and solidarity. People make better decisions when they have the wisdom and accountability of a support network. They take risks to improve their lives when they know that they will not face the risk alone. And people need the spiritual and emotional support of others who care and pray for them and their families in times of success and failure.

This is the social dimension of integral mission. And in a world where people are often separated by walls and closed doors, it takes the courage of some to step out and knock.  

Erica and Lenny

Please join us in praying for and supporting the ministry of Canadian Baptists and our partners in Africa. We especially remember those working in the self help group approach in communities like Dandora, Eastleigh and Kariobangi. Urban poverty is a growing issue throughout Africa as displaced and desperate people follow the flow of urbanization and often find themselves in informal settlements and slums that lack basic infrastructure and support.

We also pray for churches like the ACC&S as they discern God's call to share the love and hope of Christ with the marginalized of their society.

To learn more about the work of Canadian Baptist Ministries in Africa and around the world, please see our website at www.cbmin.org