It’s not a secret that most Chamas are started and dominated by women. Most of us can vividly remember how our mums and aunts would meet after every week to make contributions and do finance discussions over a cup of tea, snacks and/or food. Let’s talk about Chama, today.
A Chama is a kind of cooperative society that is used to accumulate and invest in savings. Most of them that succeed are urban areas and are mostly referred to as investment clubs.
In Kenya, Chamas are estimated to be 300,000 of them and among them, control upward total of KES 300 billion in assets. According to a report by Financial Sector Deepening Kenya (FSD Kenya), an organization working to promote financial inclusion in Kenya, Chamas are being used by about 61% of Kenyans to date.
The origin of Chamas can be traced to women labor groups and Church groups. Although Chamas tended to be for women only, over the years after their growth and huge successes, men have also opted-in.
In 1972, women members of Lungai Monthly Meeting used to meet every Wednesday for weekly services in each member’s homes.
There arose an immediate challenge. As they met, they would share a cup of tea.
The challenge was some members would go slowly to host the mid-week service due to lack of cups, plates and spoons. So they came up with an idea to start boosting their members in a form of Merry Go Round of buying kitchen stuff each Wednesday that they met.
By 1978, the Chama, which had been registered as Sukuma Women Group commanded huge resources and membership spanning nearly three quarters of the then Tongaren division.
To date, Sukuma Women Group as a Chama is dormant dealing with transition issues.
Chamas typically used a merry-go-round structure in which all members contribute a certain fixed amount monthly or weekly or even daily. The amount is then given to one of the members in turns.
Over time many Chamas have started to formalize with some even registering as companies investing in various areas including real estate and transport. A common feature that has been maintained is table banking – where members can borrow from the pool of contributions available.
Chamas (in all their different forms) are so popular in Kenya that financial industry analysts estimate that nearly two thirds of Kenyans belong to one.
West Media Limited through West FM and Mumbo FM has under it both dormant and active Chamas standing past 600 spread over six counties.
There are some elements that have marked the development of Chamas. They all have similar issues they deal with.
Some of the challenges Chama leadership is dealing with is as follows:
Most Chama leaders failed to make any effort to innovate for the simple reason that they landed leadership to their groups by accident.
The accidental landing of Chama leadership has made them perform badly in the Coordination and communication within the groups.
Chama leadership failed to build the right Collaboration between leaders and members
To change the story, Chamas should endeavor to:
Understand transition elements and watch their own utterances, which Chama members feel the two elements have not been up to the standard.
All groups start on a very high note. To maintain this, Chama leadership must find ways to keep the tempo and spirits among members high as always.
Any progress must be determined by all group members, through consensus, commitment and dedication. The leadership must practice oneness and reject issues to separate them. They should learn to be good time managers.
Chama leadership must shun unfaithfulness.
Chama leadership should endeavor to hold seminars to educate their members on the group constitution. Those forming new groups should by themselves make the constitution so as to understand them, all clauses so that no one can exploit members using grey areas.
By Caleb Kituyi