Today, we visited the Lukundane (“Love One Another”) group that Erika and I, along with Erika’s parents, are partnered with. They are eight months into the program.

They greeted us with dance, and we danced together.

Then, we had a homily from the group pastor, in which she said “don’t let anyone look down upon you because you are young.”

In eight months, the members of this group have finished their training and opened their first businesses. (Group members, as you probably know already, start multiple businesses. This is an intentional feature of the Zoe program, to give kids practice at starting businesses, and to increase their resilience, in case one business is not successful.) They have opened an M-KOBA account, which provides a group savings account like M-PESA (banking by text message). These M-KOBA accounts provide transparency: each member of the group can see the balance and all transaction. I believe they are also controlled in that multiple signatures are required to disburse funds from the account. (This is also true of more traditional group savings accounts.)

They have chosen a group project, and that is to grow eggplants and sell the seeds and also seedlings. They have made projections of how much profit they will get from this activity, and they plan to reinvest their profits.

Then, we heard testimonies from some of the members.

Gift told us that before Zoe, he was a street kid, with no direction, no hope, and no job. He would work as a day laborer in construction jobs, but he frequently did not get paid. (That’s a common theme among the members: they put in a day’s work and then get cheated.) After he joined the Zoe program, he was able to open his own business, with a more reliable income.

Esther told us that before Zoe she was a housemaid who was unpaid and mistreated (more than simply being cheated out of her wages). She worked for a year as a housemaid but was only paid for six months. Then, a boy came along, and, as happens to often, she trusted him and became pregnant. When she told him, he abandoned her. She stayed with a friend during the pregnancy and gave birth, caring for the baby at the friend’s house. However, after a while, the friend kicked her out, and she returned to her parent’s house (I think she only had her mom). Then she heard about Zoe. Zoe asked her what she liked to do, and her answer was hairdressing, so they gave her hairdressing training. Now, she runs a salon, and can support herself, her baby and her siblings.

Mwanaisha (spelled phonetically by Erika, who did a better job of capturing the name than I did) was also working at someone’s home. She was unpaid and received no food. She says she became patient and stayed there, because she could at least sleep there. When she heard of Zoe, she quit her “employ” and joined the group. She received training in tailoring and was able to open and grow her own business. Now, she is able to eat.

Alfan Mohammed was a vulnerable child, who took day jobs weeding crops. His only parent lives far away, so he was homeless. The family situation arose after his father died, there was some family conflict (I’m a little unclear about this), their house burned, and his mother abandoned him and moved away (I can only imagine that scene). After he joined Zoe, he received barbering training and was able to open a barbershop. He has now found God and can care for himself and his siblings.

We heard from their mentor, Tumaine, who is himself the chairman of a second-year Zoe group. Tumaine said that the village where they were (which was pretty far out of Arusha) was fortunate in that it had good water. We also heard that some of the members’ fathers were alcoholics and had sold the family houses to rich people who were then growing crops on the members’ former land.

He went on to say that a particular challenge in the village was the Maasai culture of expecting children to fend for themselves at the age of ten. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are kicked out of the house automatically (I don’t THINK they are, anyway), but it frequently means they have to drop out of school and find some work, and they may also get kicked out of the house. It’s not uncommon to see kids this age herding cows, goats and sheep. Some of the kids took on heavy construction work.

However, when the community leaders invited Zoe into the community, the leaders went out and FOUND the most vulnerable and highest-potential kids, and helped to recruit them into the program.

The group members gave us soft drinks and muffins as a snack, and also gifts of Maasai blankets.

Somewhere in the middle of this, we danced some more. They had pretty good taste in music.

After this, they demonstrated how they extract seeds from the eggplants. With luck, I will be able to upload photos and images of this.

In the end, we prayed for the success of the group.

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After we said our farewells, we went to visit a group that has only been formed for two months. They live in a pretty arid area, and their church is plastic sheeting and sheet metal attached to dead saplings embedded in the ground. (Although the foundation of a much better one has been laid immediately behind it.) This was the toughest visit of all. They have not yet finished their training. They have written a group constitution, which is required to open a bank account, and I believe they have opened a group bank account with seed money from Zoe.

We heard some testimonies from some of the kids, and they were painful.

One young woman was abandoned by her father when she was nine. She lived with her mom, but had to help by working day jobs. She was frequently unpaid and sometimes they had no food. While she was telling this, she broke down and cried.

Gideon Baracka’s father abandoned him when he was ten. His mother is having trouble supporting him.

Lovelace was in school, but she got pregnant, and the child’s father abandoned her. She gave birth, but then had to work day jobs as a farm laborer with the child on her back. Her dream is to be a business-woman.

Allen’s father died, and he had to help his mother. He got a job as a concrete mixer (mixers also carry the concrete to where it is needed; it is very hard work) because then he would at least get paid. His dream is to be a mechanic.

Dennis Obedi’s father left him with three siblings, and married another woman. However, he also used the family house as collateral, which leave the family vulnerable to being evicted if his father’s business fails (which it might). His mother is extremely stressed. His dream is to become a hairdresser.

At this point, we called a bit of a halt to the testimonials because we didn’t want to put the members through the stress of repeating what is obviously traumatic or shameful or extremely sad in some way. Instead, we asked them to simply tell us their dreams.

Abubaka’s and another member’s dream is to be a professional mechanic.

Frisca Charles’s dream is to be a fashionista.

One member’s dream is to be a big business man.

Josea’s dream is to be a big farmer.

Patience’s dream (her name is actually Swahili, but it translates to Patience) is to have a big salon.

Fabiola’s dream is to be a hairdresser.

Another member’s dream is to be a livestock keeper.

Another wants to be a businessman who buys wholesale and sells retail.

Tumaine (different from the one mentioned in the other group) wants to a professional agriculturalist, to the point of studying it in school.

Goodreason wants to be a house interior plasterer and designer (designs are made in the plaster while it is still wet).

Livingston wants to be a businessman and sell produce.

We also made comments that we hope were comforting and/or inspirational. Then we introduced ourselves, and told them what we do.

And finally, we prayed for them, and said our farewells. It really was a difficult visit.

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After this, we visited the businesses of several of our Lukundane group members, and the group projects.

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to write this up another time, because it’s late here and I still need to pack for the short safari trip we have scheduled in the Ngorongo Crater. More tomorrow, if I have coverage.