Rachel Ruto's Joyful Women marks 14th anniversary

Joyful Women Organization (JOYWO), an initiative of First Lady Mama Rachel Ruto is today marking the 14th anniversary since its inception.

JOYWO was founded in 2009 to empower women economically through financial inclusion, skills development, market access and linkages to meet their basic needs and fulfil their potential.

Currently, it has 188,000 active members and 15,000 groups from 44 counties across the country.

It has a revolving fund of $21 million (Sh3.1 billion).

It operates a table banking model where groups of between 10 to 30 members gather every month to save and borrow.

During their gathering, members place their savings on the table, from a minimum of Sh200 to any amount decided by the group which is set as their maximum saving.

Members are then able to borrow immediately from the money collected to boost their income-generating livelihoods.

“It was formed out of compassion for the woman that is excluded from the financial sector but who has a desire and a need to access credit and financing,” a note on its website states.

Stella Chepngeno, the Director of women's economic empowerment said their role is to offer technical expertise by offering capacity building and training.

“It is the women themselves that loan out their money…for us, we offer them the necessary support which includes connecting them with the market to ensure they succeed,” she said in a recent interview.

The event to be held at the Kasarani will be graced by President William Ruto and visiting First Ladies from Namibia, Ghana and Burundi.

Edward Ngaira, the head of department Mercy Works and Faith Diplomacy stated that their activities are centred on improving the life and livelihood of women.

In a past event, Rachel explained that the journey to start the organization started back in 1997.

Speaking in February during a Table Banking forum in Kibra in the company of the visiting US First Lady Jill Biden, Rachel said she was only 27 years old and had just gotten married when the idea came about.

"That's about 25 years ago. I had an opportunity to go to the villages of Eldoret campaigning to help my husband, now President," she said.

The First Lady said as she crisscrossed the villages asking for votes and met a particular group of women.

"So I went as a wife and a mother to go meet the mothers and the youth and just to see what was happening and helping campaign," she said.

"They were seated, not very far from the road, about 50 of them, and I stopped to talk to them just asking for votes. But something different caught my attention."

She said she noticed one woman who was sitting right in front of her, looking like she had not had breakfast, yet she gave her a good smile.

Rachel said that she said to herself that if her husband made it to Parliament, she would go back and do something for the women.

"Because what I saw was not very acceptable, because I was wondering if a mother comes from her house without shoes to come for that kind of a meeting, what was the situation at home? she said.

"What about her children? And many things went round my head."

After President Ruto won the Eldoret North seat, she pondered over how she would help the women as the wife of an MP.

"I kept wondering, and I kept talking to people because, for me, I was looking for sustainability for those women," she said.