Gauging the health of a nation

Recently polls have become all the rage especially in reference to the proposed constitution whose referendum is being held in August.
Whenever polls are done in Kenya, they are usually used to further the schemes of the ruling political elite to the detriment of the hapless ‘ordinary citizen’ who usually has no vested interest in the outcome of the polls. Perhaps we should start talking polls addressing the needs and concerns of Kenyans; this would than set the tone for the government’s development agenda.
A novel way to address the concerns of a nation through a satisfaction survey comes from the Kingdom of Bhutan in South Asia. Bhutan has managed to modernize while at the same time protect its ancient culture and traditions under the guiding philosophy of Gross National Happiness (GNH).
Bhutan’s guide to happiness: Gross National Happiness (GNH).
The concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) was developed in an attempt to define an indicator that measures quality of life or social progress minus measurements of commercial transactions(as a key indicator)to directly assess changes in the social and psychological well-being of populations.
The term was coined in 1972 by Bhutan's former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, who has opened up Bhutan to the age of modernization. He used the phrase to signal his commitment to building an economy that would serve Bhutan's unique culture based on Buddhist spiritual values.
An alternate to measuring wealth solely on monetary terms, this model was developed as a survey instrument to measure the population's general level of well-being
Each year, Bhutan's prime minister reports to the National Assembly on “the four pillars of GNH:
-Promotion of equitable and sustainable socioeconomic development
-Preservation and promotion of cultural values
-Conservation of the natural environment
-Establishment of good governance.
As a result, Bhutan has implemented policies such as:
-Establishing public schools with rotation of teachers between rural and urban regions
-Providing both Western and traditional medicine
-Maintaining at least 60 percent of Bhutan's land as forest
Although Bhutan's per capita household income remains among the lowest in the world, and despite unresolved tribal conflicts that have exiled Bhutanese of Nepalese descent to refugee camps, several indicators show a brighter picture:
• Life expectancy rose from 47 years to 66 years
• Infant mortality dropped from 103 per 1,000 live births to 60 per 1,000 between 1984 and 2001.
• The fraction of the population with access to safe drinking water rose from 45 percent to 75 percent in the same time period
• Adult literacy increased from 23 percent to 54 percent.
In 2006, Business Week magazine rated Bhutan the happiest country in Asia and the eighth-happiest in the world, citing a global survey conducted by the University of Leicester in 2006 called the "World Map of Happiness"
A second-generation GNH concept, treating happiness as a socioeconomic development metric, was proposed in 2006 by Med Jones, the President of International Institute of Management. The metric measures socioeconomic development of a nation's mental and emotional health by tracking 7 development areas:
1. Economic Wellness: Indicated via economic metrics such as consumer debt, average income to consumer price index ratio and income distribution
2. Environmental Wellness: Indicated via statistical measurement of environmental metrics such as pollution, noise and traffic
3. Physical Wellness: Indicated via statistical measurement of physical health metrics such as severe illnesses
4. Mental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of mental health metrics such as usage of antidepressants and rise or decline of psychotherapy patients
5. Workplace Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of labor metrics such as jobless claims, job change, workplace complaints and lawsuits
6. Social Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of social metrics such as discrimination, safety, divorce rates, complaints of domestic conflicts and family lawsuits, public lawsuits, crime rates
7. Political Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of political metrics such as the quality of local democracy, individual freedom, and foreign conflicts.
Pertinent Points
If the Proposed Constitution were to pass in August, the nation would then adopt a devolved system of government that would replace provinces and districts with counties headed by Senators. The counties would have a County Assembly made up of Assembly Men representing the various Wards.
This proposed system of government would favor the policies we have been trying to formulate that address how to work towards sustainable rural economies.
In a county setting, wellness surveys could be conducted to ascertain how government funds should be utilized to best reflect the needs of local residents.
Since County Assemblies will be required to hold regular meetings, representatives of local community organizations, business people and concerned residents could bring proposals to be considered by the assembly for possible future implementation.
We would propose that local residents sit in on budget allocation hearings and have some input, via debate and proposal letters, as to how monies from the federal government will be allocated to the various development and social programs.
We would also propose that in all County Assembly meetings:
- They are open to local residents,
-Sessions are recorded and transcripts made available upon request to local residents.
-Records of the voting patterns of assembly members are made available upon request
-Records of attendance of assembly members are made available upon request
-Records of all financial transactions are made available upon request
Conclusion
It is our stated position that to become a healthy nation; economically, spiritually, morally and socially, we need to address the needs peculiar to every locality.
Unfortunately the local leader at the grass roots level is the very epitome of ineptitude. Anytime there is a news item about a Councilor, it is usually involves a rowdy meeting that invariably leads to fisticuffs or embezzlement of one kind of another.
In an effort to redeem the sullied reputation of the Councilor and to get an opportunity to implement the various ideas discussed here on this blog, I am offering my candidature for the seat of Assembly Man( upon the passage of the proposed constitution) in a local ward in Kajiado North Constituency.
I will be vying under the banner of our yet unregistered party, the African Economic Democracy Party.
Reader responses welcome.

Participatory Democracy: Giving power back to the people.

This offering was prompted by a recent news story in the Daily Nation newspaper of Kenya. In summation, the story talked about a group of Councillors who had been invited to a conference in Nairobi by the President to seek their support in the upcoming referendum on the draft Constitution. The Councillors heckled and booed the speakers and when the President tried to address them they punctured the air with shouts of “pesa! pesa!”(Money! money!). This was in apparent reference to a demand for a pay raise and increase in their allowances before they would offer their support to the passing of the new Constitution.
Unfortunately, these are the kind of grass roots leaders we have today, imbued with greed and bereft of any development agenda, yet quick to hold the government hostage by demanding pay raises to do what they were elected to do.
This dismal lack of public decorum displayed by the Councillors only reinforces points we had noted in previous posts, such as this initial offering found HERE.
Dire prognosis
The government will not bring about progress or development, not in present Kenya or in the next few generations. This grim prediction can be avoided if several things are to occur:
- The government redefines its role. It needs to avoid engaging in commercial enterprise, such as seeking foreign investors to partner in government projects. News item can be found HERE
-The government needs to provide better services for taxes collected. Its record on security for its citizens is abysmal. Thugs run wild and even state security forces have been involved in dubious incidents of gunning down civilians without probable cause or provocation.
-Infrastructure needs to focus on rural areas. While having a modern multi lane highway is impressive to visitors, the rural peasantry needs accessible roads to take produce to market and to facilitate commerce regionally.
So in contrast we present two inspiring stories of communities that organized to take back local government from officials and vest it back to the people most affected by its decisions.
Porto Alegre, Brazil-Proponents of participatory budgeting
In the early 1990s, the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, then-led by the leftist Workers’ Party (PT), garnered international attention for pioneering citizen participation in allocating a chunk of city resources. Now fifty thousand residents of Porto Alegre—poor and middle class, women and men, leftist and centrist, take part in the participatory budgeting process for this city of a million and a half people, and the numbers involved have grown each year.
Thousands of citizens sit through meetings, discuss budget priorities, and elect delegates to represent their neighborhoods. The result has been increased civic activity and city budgets which fairly address the needs of the whole city, rather than the wealthy and powerful few. The transparency of the process has eliminated corruption, which had nearly bankrupted the city. Democracy is thriving as citizens gain competence in talking with the mayor, specialists in agencies, and fellow citizens of different means.
Power and learning
The participatory budgeting cycle starts in January of each year with dozens of assemblies across the city designed to ensure the system operates with maximum participation and friendly interaction.
Each February, there is instruction from city specialists in technical and system aspects of city budgeting. Regular folks learn fast because what they are learning empowers them to change conditions that limit or extend their lives.
In March there are plenary assemblies in each of the city's 16 districts as well as assemblies dealing with such areas as transportation, health, education, sports, and economic development. These large meetings—with participation that can reach over 1,000—elect delegates to represent specific neighborhoods. The mayor and staff attend to respond to citizen concerns. In subsequent months these delegates meet weekly or biweekly in each district to acquaint themselves with the technical criteria involved in requesting a project be brought to a district.
At the second regional plenary, regional delegates prioritize the district's demands and elect councillors to serve on the Municipal Council of the Budget. The council is a 42-member forum of representatives of all the districts and thematic meetings. Its main function is to reconcile the demands of each district with available resources, and to propose and approve an overall municipal budget. The resulting budget is binding.
Since the participative budgeting program started:
• There are 120 public day-care facilities instead of two
• Fifty-seven new schools have opened; twice as many children attend school
• The percentage of homes with running water and sewer service has gone from 46 to 85 percent
• The transit system is modern, affordable, efficient, and widely used.
• Each year the bulk of new street-paving projects have gone to the poorer, outlying districts.
• In addition to these achievements, corruption, which before was the rule, has virtually disappeared.
• The Porto Alegre budgeting process is now used in 200 Brazilian cities, including São Paolo, one of the largest cities in the world.
Communal Councils in Venezuela- Revolutionizing democracy
Since the start of 2006, thousands of tiny Venezuelan neighborhoods, with an average of 200 families each, have been organizing communal councils. The councils are part of a broad effort to build a new political system of participatory democracy, in which citizens have control over the decisions that affect their lives. The councils are helping communities address common interests, funneling more money to basic community needs, and bringing people together in thousands of neighborhoods.
The story begins in the 1980s, Venezuela began an extensive decentralization process, launching mayoral elections and handing over new responsibilities to local governments. After Chávez was elected president in 1998, he continued the decentralization, but changed its emphasis. He called for transferring power not to local government, but directly to popular movements.
The Communal Councils Law was passed in the Venezuelan National Assembly in April 2006, it legally recognized the communal councils and, according to Chapter Five of the Law, established the councils’ right to legally receive and administer resources from government institutions.
The law recommends that each urban council contain 200-400 families, each rural council at least 20 families, and each indigenous council at least 10 families. These assemblies are to elect executive, financial management, and monitoring committees, as well as thematic committees based on local priorities (health, education, recreation, land, safety, etc.).
By law, they can receive funds directly from the national, state, or city governments, from their own fundraising, or from donations. In turn, the councils can award grants for community projects. If they set up a communal bank with neighboring councils, they can also make loans to cooperatives or other activities for use.
Effects on the community
Eight months after the law was passed, over 16,000 councils had already formed throughout the country—12,000 of them had received funding for community projects. That’s $1 billion total, out of a national budget of $53 billion. The councils had established nearly 300 communal banks, which have received $70 million for micro-loans.
The communal councils have implemented thousands of community projects, such as street paving, sports fields, medical centers, and sewage and water systems.
Getting people to participate
A national system of participatory democracy requires more participation from more people than any social movement or other form of civic engagement. Venezuelans are indeed participating in massive numbers. Thousands of communities, however, have yet to show much interest in organizing a communal council.
Encouraging participation.
-First, Caracas has delegated significant power directly to the communal councils. The allure of self-government attracts many people.
-The government has also provided direct positive incentives for participation. The most obvious is money. Many people get involved because they can get funds for neighborhood improvements, but only if they form a council.
-The councils attract people by making their events fun. Some of the more prolific councils mix music, food, and entertainment into their assemblies. These virtual block parties transform one of the costs of participation (tedious meetings) into a benefit (a good time).
-Finally, the government is trying to reduce the obstacles to participation. Because the councils are so local, the transportation and time costs of participation are less.
-Another approach is even more ambitious—freeing people’s time by making participation part of their jobs. Such a program could especially boost the participation of working professionals and could be coordinated by the state, like a form of community service.
Venezuela’s communal councils are still a work in progress, but so far, the results are promising. Thousands of communities are mobilizing as never before, taking advantage of their new power to decide government spending and policies.
Conclusion
From the above stories there are many fine examples that we will research and tweak to fit to Kenya’s local situation. The budding political party, The African Economic Democracy Party is currently a Think Tank dedicated to Rural Development policy formulation and implementation and will be charged with bringing to fruition these ideas here and in previous offerings.

The demerits of factory schooling

In a previous article, we decried the usefulness of our education system, as it is today, in preparing students for nation building. In the article, found HERE, we took issue with the emphasis on the teaching methods used that emphasis rote learning to pass exams. The top scoring students in the national exams are feted while being cursorily reassured that they may have a promising future, while the lesser scoring students are discarded to fend for themselves in the informal sector, without further training.
In this submission, we will make arguments against this education system we have in place. We have to state that we are not diminishing the usefulness of a higher education especially in specialized areas such as doctoring, lawyering or other sciences. What we do wish to present is the argument that we should adopt a policy of giving our students a well rounded education to prepare them for a fulfilling life after school.
India’s Shikshantar: Rethinking education and development.
This grassroots movement, website HERE, encourages individuals and communities to reclaim control over their own learning processes, minds, and hearts. Its philosophy springs from the Gandhian principle of Swaraj, or liberation through self-mastery and self-awareness of the diverse and non-violent cultures, traditions, and values of South Asia.
For the people of Shikshantar, social change starts with individuals and communities existence and daily practices. That means drawing on traditional wisdom and imagination to build trusting communities; value indigenous expressions and local resources; and continually share skills, visions, and experiences across generations.
Community members involved with Shikshantar have transformed the entire city of Udaipur in Rajathstan into a learning ecosystem.
• Through songs, stories, films and publications, the community is regenerating Mewari, the local language that has been falling from use because of the government promotion of Hindi and English.
• Led by artists, farmers, healers, chefs and artisans, free workshops teach local crafts made from waste, media production, self-healing, slow food recipes, and sustainable agriculture.
• Shikshantar also offers resources to walk-outs - its term for people who have chosen to leave traditional schools - such as apprenticeships that give walk-out youth on-the-job training, real world vision, and the skills they need for green vocations and lifestyles.
The Community School: Offering alternatives through Relational Education
“Relational Education” is a form of education that places a primary focus on the development of trusting, supportive, and resilient relationships between all members of the learning community. It has been crafted by the staff and students at the Community School, Camden, Maine.
What the Community School offers to students, who are 16 to 20 years old, is unique and attractive – a six month residence that combines work, community living, and academics and results in a high school diploma regardless of previous success or failure in traditional schooling.
What it is
Teachers as Listeners
One aspect of our approach is that teachers must become listeners. We actually call our faculty teacher/counselors. Each student is assigned a “one to one” or advisor, who they meet with regularly to go over their progress in the program and to develop a trusting and supportive relationship.
Informal Time and the Experience of Each other as Human Beings
Teacher/counselors live at the Community School. Human interactions occur over a breakfast bowl of cereal, on a ride to work, in a late night discussion in the living room, during “informal” times when our “official roles” in the community are not as sharply defined. It is here that we find out that we are more alike than different.
The Development of Trust
Choice: Students have chosen to come to us of their own free will, they have applied to the School, gone through an extensive interview process and have chosen to stay after completing the two and a half week trial period at the beginning of the term
Sensible structure: Day to day life at the Community School makes “sense” – students work at jobs in the community during the day, are responsible for daily household chores, and study at night
Academic engagement: Students are involved in the structuring of their own courses; whenever possible curricular subject matter is relevant to the student’s interests and skill levels
Democratic decision making: Students are involved with faculty in making decisions regarding programmatic issues as well as codes and consequences for individual behaviors.
A Sense of Belonging
Because of its small scale (eight students, six faculty), residential nature, and focused goal, the School creates a learning community which invites a sense of belonging from the participants.
The School’s Outreach program which works with graduates and families to help them with their post-graduate lives.
Former students also play a role with current students through volunteering as tutors, panelists, special class presenters, and working in the program.
Responsibilities and the “Real World”
Students at the Community school hold jobs in the community and owe room and board. They do not graduate if they are not paid up. They have to find and hold these jobs in order to complete the program.
Pertinent points
-From the Indian Shikshantar movement, we learn the usefulness of preserving our own cultures and languages. Perhaps we can introduce tribal languages as options for students to study.
-Another idea would be to have students stay with a host family of a different tribe over holidays to learn their customs and traditions.
-Students who do not make it to University and don’t have funds to pay for technical school, could perhaps get apprenticeships with trades people to learn hands on. Experienced trades people could get a kind of teaching certification and would then give some kind of diploma to successful apprentices.
- From the Community School in Maine, we learn of the usefulness of students and teachers interacting in an informal setting. If our teachers scheduled activities with students such as eating lunch together while discussing the day’s news, attending sporting events and others, teachers and students would value each other more and would be more receptive to formal learning.
Conclusion
We ought to reconsider the Culture of Schooling because:
• It labels, ranks and sorts human beings. It creates a rigid social hierarchy consisting of a small elite class of ‘highly educated’ and a large lower class of ‘failures’ and ‘illiterates’, based on levels of school achievement.
• It forces human beings to violently compete against each other over scarce resources in rigid win-lose situations.
• Confines the motivation for learning to examinations, certificates and jobs while delinking knowledge from wisdom and practical experiences.
• It drives people to distrust their local languages. It prioritizes newspapers, textbooks, television as the only reliable sources of information. These forms of State and Market controlled media do not serve the interests of the general public.
• It destroys the dignity of labor and devalues the learning that takes place through manual work.
The African Economic Democracy Party, will be responsible for implementing the views presented here. We hope it will have a national appeal when we launch next year. We invite economic revolutionaries to join us to bring the progress only we the people can effect.
Reader responses welcome.

Debunking the old 'time is money' adage

In this offering, We put forth the notion that the worth of a man should not be determined by how much he can consume or accumulate but by servitude and the gifting of a legacy of empowerment to these he has encountered in his life’s journey.
We argue that there is a life beyond capitalism and the greed that accompanies it. There is a life beyond the depletion of non renewable resources if we strive to live harmoniously with nature’s abundance. There is a better life for the workers of the world if employers put people first above profit.
We present this story of an alternate program that has been designed and implemented to value man’s contribution to the healthy and sustainable growth of society.
Time Banking-Strengthening communities through reciprocity
Time Dollars were developed in 1980 by law professor Edgar Cahn, who lamented that crucial work to improve people’s lives—such as child and elder care—is much needed but little valued. He saw that many who could do these tasks were idle and felt useless. To get people economically engaged, Cahn proposed a system where people earn credit according to the number of hours they work. These Time Dollars can then be “cashed in” for services, like yard work, tutoring, etc.
The necessity for a Time Bank
The monetary economy only pays for the specialized skills that produce the goods and services it requires.
Result: Certain kinds of work—rearing healthy children, preserving families, making neighborhoods safe and vibrant, caring for the frail and vulnerable, redressing injustice, enriching our culture, saving the environment—are not recognized, valued and rewarded as “real” work. People who invest their time in these areas, people who do not have money, and people who are perceived as lacking marketable skills are often rejected or discarded.
What is Time Banking all about?
At its most basic level, Time banking is simply about spending an hour doing something for somebody in your community. That hour goes into the Time Bank as a Time Dollar. Then you have a Time dollar to spend on having someone doing something for you. It's a simple idea, but it has powerful ripple effects in building community connections and promoting social justice by connecting people through reciprocity.
Time Banking is about local individuals helping each other out, one-on-one or with group projects. They help rebuild neighborhood networks and strengthen communities. It connects you to the best in people because it creates a system that connects unmet needs with untapped resources.
The Five Core Values of Time Banking
Assets -We are all assets.
Every human being has something to contribute. No more throw away people. We cannot overlook the unique skills and talents that each of has to offer others. Every member of society has talents that may not be immediately marketable or lead to employment but may be used to enrich the social fabric of a community.
Redefining Work -Some work is beyond price.
Work has to be redefined to value whatever it takes to raise healthy children, build strong families, revitalize neighborhoods, make democracy work, advance social justice and make the planet sustainable. That kind of work needs to be honored, recorded and rewarded.
Reciprocity -Helping works better as a two-way street.
The question: “How can I help you?” needs to change so we ask: “How can we help each other build the world we both will live in?”
Social Networks-We need each other.
Networks are stronger than individuals- People helping each other reweave communities of support, strength & trust. Community is built upon sinking roots, building trust, creating networks. The trust, sharing and mutual support of our social networks are essential elements of healthy communities and healthy individuals.
Respect-Every human being matters.
Respect underlies freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and everything we value. Respect supplies the heart and soul of democracy. We must respect where people are in the moment, not where we hope they will be at some future point.
Pertinent points
How would a Time Bank work in a rural setting?
The time bank would be set up on a website and on paper at the local community center and it would be run by volunteers. Local residents would sign up with their known talents and they would also list their wants if they have them at the time. As the list grows, residents would log into the website and see if there are people who require their particular expertise. If there is, they would be put in touch with the person in need. They would perform the task and earn a credit equal to about an hour of work. We will call this credit a ‘Time shilling’; we will come up with a catchier name later.
Some possible scenarios:
• A retired school teacher helps some high school students with tutoring. He earns credit in the time bank to use later. The students then log in the hours as owed to the community and they list areas they would be of use to the community.
• A farmer needs help with putting up a fence or other task on his farm. He previously donated some poultry products to a committee that was having a fund raising dinner to raise funds to renovate the local primary school and earned time shillings. He redeems his credits by requesting the high schools to help him put up the fence.
What kinds of services would be exchanged in a Time Bank?
Help at Home
• Child Care
• Cooking & Sewing
• Hair & Beauty
• Housekeeping
Community Activities
• Clean Up/Recycling
• Community Service
• Fundraising
Home Repair
• Car Care
• Carpentry/Construction
• Electrical
• Garden & Yard Work
• Painting
• Plumbing
Education
• Classes/Workshops
• Computers/Technology
• Personal Finances
• Tutoring/Mentoring
Conclusion
As we have said before, the rural areas are the life blood of our nation. We need to make them as habitable and sustainable as possible and reverse the rural to urban migration.
Our local governments are not the beacons of hope to hinge our future on.
Politicians are lacking in any development ideas and it would be the height of folly to expect progress from a bunch of fraudsters only out to enrich themselves through the pillaging of public resources.
Progress will only come through local community organizations tackling local issues. Local leaders aspiring to elected offices will have to pay their dues through the implementation of local projects.
We are in the process of finalizing a manifesto of our socially, politically and economically inclusive organization to be known as The African Economic Democracy Party.
Economic revolutionaries wanted, apply within.
Reader responses welcome.

A tale of two transitional towns

The goal of this blog is to bring the reader inspiring stories of communities and leaders from around the world that are putting people first ahead of profit or power.
In this offering, we present two stories of two disparate towns with similar policies that emphasize economic self-sufficiency and promote a culture of empowered citizens making democracy work for them.
The following two stories were taken and condensed from yes!Magazine.
Burlington, Vermont: policies of inclusiveness and fairness
For 20 years, Burlington, Vermont, has been pursuing policies that are counter to the growth-at-any-cost trend followed by so many other medium-sized cities.
Here are some of these policies in different areas:
Groceries: When the city's last downtown grocery closed several years ago, residents realized that, as in many other communities, essential services were leaving the city center for the suburbs. The city decided to lease a city parking lot on attractive terms to a grocery store, through a competitive bid process.
The local food co-op won the bid, and opened its new 17,000-square-foot energy-efficient facility a year ago. The store now serves 1,800 customers a day and has met its sales projections from the day it opened. The co-op offers a full range of natural, organic, and traditional supermarket items at competitive prices, all with a bias toward locally grown food.
Housing and Land: With a housing shortage and a community-wide aversion to suburban sprawl, maintaining affordable housing is a challenge. The centerpiece of the city's response is the Burlington Community Land Trust (BCLT), the largest land trust in the country and the first to be created and funded by a municipality. With over 250 units—mostly single-family homes and condominiums—BCLT insulates affordable housing from market forces and land speculation, assures access to land and housing for low-income people, and preserves and improves neighborhoods.
Banking: The Burlington Ecumenical Action Ministry founded the Vermont Development Credit Union in 1990. The member-owned cooperative, which serves low-income and other underserved populations, is now self-sustaining. In the 10 years since it was founded, the credit union has provided banking services to 6,600 low-income Vermonters, made 4,900 loans with less than a 1 percent default rate, made available $35 million in capital, and provided financing for 250 new homeowners.
Democracy: In the early 1980s, then Mayor (now US Representative) Bernie Saunders, established seven Neighborhood Planning Assemblies to give citizens a vehicle for solving neighborhood problems, allocating funds for neighborhood projects, and choosing citizens to represent their neighborhoods on a variety of task forces and advisory boards. Since then, they've provided a platform for such citizen-led neighborhood improvement projects as clean-up days, home and business improvement awards, and tree plantings.
The Future: In 1992, Burlington purchased a 45-acre parcel of prime undeveloped land located along the shore of Lake Champlain and created a Waterfront Urban Reserve. According to the city's urban renewal plan, this will “reserve the right for future generations to determine what level of development should occur at this site.” For now, the reserve is open to the public for walking, fishing, biking, quiet contemplation, and periodic art events.
Belo Horizonte, Brazil: The City that Ended Hunger
To begin to conceive of the possibility of a culture of empowered citizens making democracy work for them, real-life stories help. The story of Brazil’s fourth largest city, Belo Horizonte, is a rich trove of such lessons. Belo, a city of 2.5 million people, once had 11 percent of its population living in absolute poverty, and almost 20 percent of its children going hungry.
Then in 1993, a newly elected administration declared food a right of citizenship. The new mayor, Patrus Ananias—now leader of the federal anti-hunger effort—began by creating a city agency, which included assembling a 20-member council of citizen, labor, business, and church representatives to advise in the design and implementation of a new food system.
• It offered local family farmers dozens of choice spots of public space on which to sell to urban consumers, essentially redistributing retailer mark-ups on produce—which often reached 100 percent—to consumers and the farmers. Farmers’ profits grew, since there was no wholesaler taking a cut. And poor people got access to fresh, healthy food.
• In addition to the farmer-run stands, the city makes good food available by offering entrepreneurs the opportunity to bid on the right to use well-trafficked plots of city land for “ABC” markets, from the Portuguese acronym for “food at low prices.” Today there are 34 such markets where the city determines a set price. There’s another obligation attached to being able to use the city land. Every weekend they have to drive produce-laden trucks to the poor neighborhoods outside of the city center, so everyone can get good produce.
• Another product of food-as-a-right thinking is three large, airy “People’s Restaurants” (Restaurante Popular), plus a few smaller venues, that daily serve 12,000 or more people using mostly locally grown food for the equivalent of less than 50 cents a meal.
• Belo’s food security initiatives also include extensive community and school gardens as well as nutrition classes. Plus, money the federal government contributes toward school lunches, once spent on processed, corporate food, now buys whole food mostly from local growers.
• The city, in partnership with a local university, is working to keep the market honest in part simply by providing information. They survey the price of 45 basic foods and household items at dozens of supermarkets and then post the results at bus stops, online, on television and radio, and in newspapers so people know where the cheapest prices are.
The result of these and other related innovations? In just a decade Belo Horizonte cut its infant death rate—widely used as evidence of hunger—by more than half, and today these initiatives benefit almost 40 percent of the city’s 2.5 million population.
The Belo experience shows that a right to food does not necessarily mean more public handouts (although in emergencies, of course, it does.) It can mean redefining the “free” in “free market” as the freedom of all to participate. It can mean, as in Belo, building citizen-government partnerships driven by values of inclusion and mutual respect.
Conclusion
Our nation, Kenya, is currently beleaguered by inept rulers who are besotted with the trappings of office. Devoid of any development ideas but quick to conjure up schemes to siphon off public funds, our rulers have clearly shown us that they are not agents of progression or enlightenment. The situation is exacerbated by an uninformed subservient populace mired in an endless cycle of poverty who are only too glad to do the bidding of the ruling political class in exchange for a false hope of a better tomorrow.
So how do we proceed? In the short term we hope to implement some of the ideas we have been presenting in this blog and tweak them for the local economies where our members reside. Our programs will be people led and decisions will be made by a consensus of member votes.
We are in the process of finalizing a manifesto of our socially, politically and economically inclusive party to be known as The African Economic Democracy Movement.
Economic revolutionaries wanted, apply within.
Reader responses welcome.

Solidarity Economics: Relegating profits, promoting people. Part 2of 2

In our previous offering, we introduced Solidarity Economics as an alternative to the exploitative, capitalist system that is worker unfriendly and funnels profits to headquarters far away from where they are made.
In this article, we shall give more examples of Solidarity Economics at the community level and provide a summation of those that may be adapted to the Kenyan rural situation.
Mali: The Gift Economy
Gift economies, in which human beings are worth more than the market, are fundamental to most traditional and indigenous peoples. In its purest form, a gift economy is about the collective, allocation based on need, and abundance. Behind gifting is human relationship, generation of goodwill, and attention to the nurturance of the whole society and not just one’s immediate self and family.
One of these gift systems is alive and well in Mali, West Africa. It is known as Dama. The value of the gift is immaterial because its purpose is to maintain social connections by creating and strengthening friendships, family, regional community, religious grouping, and other social networks.
A second purpose of dama is to sustain and celebrate the values of sharing and humanity—what is known as maaya or ‘being human.’ Dama as a gift or service links neighbors, parents and relatives. An example would be if parent’s children are at a neighbor’s house at mealtime, they will be fed. If it is bath time, the neighbors will bathe them as well.
Thirdly, dama is an essential strategy for keeping the community well. Malians’ understanding of community is that it is only as strong as its parts. Only by all providing for each other will all survive and thrive.
In addition to trying to prevent anyone from being too poor, yet another purpose of dama is to prevent most everyone from becoming too rich. In Mali the cultural norm is to give away as much of your accumulation as possible, with generosity and the generous being most respected. Being rich in Mali means that the person has abandoned his or her values, that he or she is not giving enough to the needs around.
Services are also offered as Dama too. Examples include girls sweeping or washing dishes, running to the corner to buy sugar, tending a market stall, braiding hair and women caring for the children of a neighbor who has to leave home to work.
Gifts encircle each life cycle. When a woman gives birth, neighbors care for all her material needs for the first forty days, organizing themselves to share in providing meals, milk, and the like.
Malians today face the challenge of keeping dama alive despite the expansion of cash transactions. Dama and other non-market economies will remain strong and viable only if organized movements vigorously defend them.
Gifting in other parts of the world
Freecycle are Web-based gift networks where individuals can post or request free items from others in their community. Freecycle facilitates sharing and re-use and it claims to keep 55 tons of stuff out of the landfill each day.
More than 3,000 groups with more than 1.3 members have self-organized in more than 50 countries, with especially large concentrations in U.S., Canada, U.K., Germany, and Australia.
Really Really Free Market is face to face version of Freecycle. These non-commercial markets take place once a week or once a month, in a park or a roving location. To them people can bring things they no longer want and take things they now want. No cash is ever accepted, and bartering rarely is. Beyond goods, Really Really Free Markets give services like hair cutting, plus food and entertainment. Developing community, keeping items out of the waste stream, and having fun are all part of it.
Baby clothing exchanges are another form of gifting. In Queens, NY, parents leave too-small clothing for younger ones and pick up the next size for free.
Gift of Kindness is a group actively promoting gifting and compassion in all spheres of life. Among other ideas, they promote committing random acts of kindness such as paying for a neighbor or co-workers food at the local diner.
Community Land Trusts: Preserving land for posterity
A community land trust (CLT) is a non-profit, regionally based organization that takes land out of the speculative market and holds it for farmland or conservation, or as sites for housing or businesses. The long-term lease provides lessees with private ownership of buildings and improvements to the land. The resale formula excludes the land value from any future sale, keeping housing and farming permanently affordable.
Community land trusts are also used to support farm homesteads, the re-gathering of tribal lands, and the development of scattered sites for affordable housing.
Housing Trust Basics in the U.S.A
Buying land through a housing trust starts when the trust acquires a parcel through purchase, foreclosure, tax abatements, or donation. The trust arranges for a housing unit to be built on the parcel if one does not yet exist, then sells the building but retains ownership of the land beneath. The new homeowner leases the land for a nominal sum (for example, $25 per month), generally for 99 years or until the house is resold.
This model supports affordable housing in several ways. First, homebuyers have to meet low-income requirements. Second, the buying price of the home is reduced because it does not include the price of the land. Third, the trust works with lenders to reduce mortgage costs by using the equity of the land as part of the mortgage calculation. This reduces the size of the down payment and other closing costs, and eliminates the need for private mortgage insurance. In all, the trust can cut the cost of home ownership by 25 percent or more.
Informal revolving loan funds
Usually found in various forms throughout Africa and embraced by Africans in the Diaspora. It involves a group of people, most of the time women, who know each other either as friends or co-workers, contributing a set sum from every member per determined period. This money is kept in trust by one member and every period, one member will get the entire kitty. This then revolves until every member is paid then it starts all over again. The logic behind this participatory savings is that as an individual it is hard to save the required sum on your own. Once one is required to give their share in a timely manner as a condition of remaining a participant, it instills discipline and forced budgeting. Also the money is like a welcome surprise although in actuality it was your own periodic contributions that you were given at the end.
Pertinent lessons
• From House holding economies, we learn that we need to teach our children basic life skills (previous article).
• From Scavenging Economies, we learn that recycling could be economically beneficial if embraced (previous article).
• From the cooperative model, we learn that workers can buy out their factories or other workplace and be joint owners. They may even be able to open up credit unions to benefit their members. In a downturn they may work fewer shifts without any of them being laid off.
• From the Community Land Trusts example, we may set aside land in rural or urban areas for affordable housing or for farmland. We may even set aside land in urban areas for parks and recreational activities.

Conclusion
It is our opinion that government development policy as it is in Kenya will not move the nation forward. A few days ago the Nation newspaper reported that:
“Taxpayers had lost Sh445 million through theft and mismanagement of constituency funds. According to a report released by the lobby group, National Taxpayers Association, the cash that could not be accounted for, is feared to have either been pocketed by individuals or mismanaged by various Constituency Development Funds (CDF) boards in the financial years 2006/07 and 2007/08”.
This is dire news indeed. Coupled with all the other recent scandals, the one option we have is to embrace Solidarity Economics as a non exploitative people- first system of social and economic advancement.
The ideas housed in this blog will form the basis of a new people-power movement to be known as the African Economic Democracy Movement whose manifesto we are working on. Economic revolutionaries are needed. Apply within.
Reader responses welcome.

Solidarity Economics: Relegating profits, promoting people. Part 1 of 2

Previously we addressed the topic of economic disparity in our nation. We painted a rather bleak picture of the present situation but a propitious future awaits us. It is our opinion that if we were to implement a policy of localized economics, where consensus and uniform participation were the foundation, we would move towards a more socially just and responsible nation.
What are Solidarity Economies?
Economy: The many different ways in which we human beings collectively generate livelihoods in relation to each other and to the rest of the Earth.
Solidarity: The process of taking active responsibility for our relationships in ways that promote diversity, autonomy, cooperation, communication, and shared-power (direct democracy).
Solidarity Economies are enterprises which rely on humane principles instead of the competition and greed often underlying the corporate market. They focus on getting everyone's needs met without exploitation, and they expand the possibilities for those who don’t have the funds to participate in standard cash markets. The values of respect, cooperation, and democracy are embedded into every step of the economic chain: creation, production, exchange, consumption, and surplus distribution.
Solidarity economies function through networks, associations, social movements, the non-profit sector, and worker coops. They emphasize women initiatives, ecological agriculture, ethical financing, and democratized technology.
Here are some forms they may take:
House holding economies—meeting basic needs with our own skills and work at home and on or with the land: raising children, offering advice or comfort, resolving relational conflicts, mentorship, teaching basic life skills, cooking, sewing, cleaning the house, building the house, balancing the checkbook, fixing the car, gardening, farming, raising animals. These are the types of work that have often been rendered invisible or devalued but they will be the focus for our social programs for the rural school going population of Kenya.
Collective economies—in their simple form these economies are about pooling our resources together (sharing): bringing food to a potluck supper, carpooling, lending and borrowing, consumer co-ops such as food buying organizations that buy food in bulk at a discount and share among members. Those based on common ownership and/or control of resources: such as health care collectives, community land trusts, and more.
Scavenging Economies—living on the abundance of Earth’s own gift economy: hunting, fishing, and foraging. Also living on the abundance of human wastefulness—salvaging from demolition sites, using old car parts and recycling instead of sending to the landfill
Gift economies—giving some of our resources to other people and to our communities: volunteer fire companies or neighborhood watch groups, community food banks, having neighbors over for dinner or throwing a neighborhood block or village party.
Worker-controlled economies—workers deciding the terms and conditions of their own work: self-employment, family farms, worker-owned companies and cooperatives.
The cooperative model
The cooperative model presents a stark contrast with conventional capitalist corporations. Co-ops offer shared ownership and democratic control. Those who benefit from the enterprise own it, and own it as equals: one member, one vote. The purpose of the enterprise is to benefit its members, not to use their economic activity as the basis for someone else’s returns.
Brazil: The Harmony Agricultural Company
The Harmony Agricultural Company has become Brazil's largest worker-managed business in the solidarity economy. It provides employment for 4,300 families who work 26,000 hectares of land, and its main activity is producing sugar at 48 mills.
When the company was in crisis in 1993, the workers applied for the owners of the company to be forced to declare bankruptcy, and took over the firm's administration, under the supervision of the justice system. Since then, they have resumed sugar production and diversified into other agricultural and industrial activities. They are also growing cassava, fruit, maize, potatoes and even raising livestock, in a family farming system based on agricultural cooperatives.
Benefits:
• The use of manual labor thereby creating more jobs.
• Social inclusion for area residents thereby less idlers and dependents on government welfare.
• More taxes for the municipalities thereby more public services offered.
• The local economy is boosted by the greater spending power of the residents.
• Rural-urban migration is reversed due to the availability of local employment.
Spain: Mondragón cooperatives
The Mondragón cooperatives in the Basque region of Spain form the best-known coop system anywhere, and have inspired emulators the world over. Launched in 1956, the Mondragón complex has grown from a single, five-member coop manufacturing kitchen appliances into a massive enterprise with over 30,000 workers and annual sales of $5 billion
History of Mondragón
When a priest named Jos‚ Mar¡a Arizmendiarrieta first arrived at the Mondragón parish in 1941, he found a town devastated by the Spanish Civil War. His aim was to confront high levels of unemployment that kept the region in poverty and isolation. His working philosophy was to put the rights and well-being of workers first, with growth mainly aimed at providing additional jobs and job security to employees. He set about rebuilding, establishing a vocational school for Mondragón's many working-class children who had no chance at education. Eventually, under his tutelage, five of the school's graduates went on to win engineering degrees and then, in 1956, start their own factory in Mondragón. Their domestic appliance company quickly generated strong profits. They reinvested these profits back into the business, reserving only a small portion for workers' own "capital accounts" which individuals could draw upon only when they left the co-op.
Challenges and solutions
When one of the Mondragón cooperatives fell on hard times, the worker/owners and the managers met to review their options. After three days of meetings, the worker/owners agreed that 20 percent of the workforce would leave their jobs for a year, during which they would continue to receive 80 percent of their pay and, if they wished, free training for other work. This group would be chosen by lottery, and if the company was still in trouble a year later, the first group would return to work and a second would take a year off. The solution worked and the company thrives to this day.
The central importance of workers permeates every aspect of the Mondragón Cooperatives. Even though the MCC businesses are affected by the global financial crisis, there is no unemployment within the MCC businesses. People are moved around to other jobs, or hours are cut without cutting pay. The wages for un-worked hours are to be repaid through extra hours worked later in the year.
Conclusions
We have stated our opinions, disdain actually, on globalization and the international trade pacts that are skewed in favor of industrialized nations. The Ministry of Local Government has undertaken some projects with its ‘development partner’, the European Union. We oppose this idea on the basis that it is non inclusive and non participatory for the people most be affected by the projects.
Solidarity Economics in its various forms, tweaked for the Kenyan situation, may provide the impetus to bring development to our nation. In the next article we shall give further examples and provide an adaptable summation of implementable ideas.
The ideas housed in this blog will form the basis of a new people-power movement to be known as the African Economic Democracy Movement which will later morph into a political party.
Reader responses welcome.