Grassroots Economics

About Us

Grassroots Economics is a non-profit foundation that seeks to partner with communities to take charge of their own livelihoods and economic future. We focus on community development through Economic Commons and are dedicated to helping communities realize and share their abundance. While core beneficiaries of our programs include small businesses and people living in informal settlements as well as rural areas, our trainings, documentation and tools have been broadly applied worldwide. Read our charter.

Grassroots Economics community gathering

BANGLADESH SETTLEMENT, MOMBASA

The Bangla-Pesa Arrests

In May 2013, six people — including founder Will Ruddick — were arrested for launching Bangla-Pesa, a community currency in Bangladesh informal settlement near Mombasa. The charge: forgery of currency. The case drew international attention from BBC, HuffPost, Al Jazeera, and Quartz. Charges were eventually dropped, and the attention only amplified the movement.

HISTORY

Our History

From a single settlement in Mombasa to a network spanning rural and urban Kenya.

Our work builds on a rich history of indigenous practices and community programs. We have implemented Commitment Pooling, Community Asset Voucher and Community Inclusion Currency programs in over 100 locations and helped more than 60,000 small businesses, churches and schools take an active role in their own economy and development. We are currently supporting and developing programs and technologies worldwide.

2010

Eco-Pesa

This program was launched as a backed currency model with 75 Businesses taking part in three informal settlements near Kongowea, Mombasa. The currency was backed by donor funds and accomplished some amazing community service and environmental goals in partnership with Green World Campaign while increasing local trade for a year period.

2012-2013

Bangla-Pesa

Bangladesh is an informal settlement of approximately 20,000 inhabitants located outside Mombasa Kenya. This was the first place where a program that was not fully dependent on donor funds was launched. After having had a dramatic start, with people being arrested under charges of forgery, this project currently holds 87,200 (ksh equivalent) vouchers in circulation and a network of 218 businesses.

2014

Gatina-Pesa

Gatina-Pesa in Kawangware Nairobi, was the first to launch and first to replicate the Bangla-Pesa model. With an amazing march through the slum, starting from Congo and ending at Gatina Primary School, the entire community mobilized around their own voucher. Hon. Simba Arati, the area Minister of Parliament, officially cut the ribbon and launched the program. Currently the network is made up of 258 businesses and a strong wholesale shop that backs the system.

2015

3 More Community Vouchers Joined the Network!

Kangemi-Pesa, Lindi-Pesa, and Ng'ombeni-Pesa joined the network, expanding the community currency movement across multiple settlements.

2016

Sarafu-Credit

All of the 5 networks joined under a common umbrella called Sarafu-Credit. This allows members to exchange excess vouchers for Kenyan Shillings. 5 supermarkets that act as collateral and network hubs were created. We began testing on platforms to go digital. The initial stages to develop 2 country-wide cooperatives (SACCOs) began. 90% of users are very satisfied with Sarafu Credit and want to keep using it.

2017

Our First Rural Program

This year we setup our first rural program in Miyani in partnership with Green World Campaign and we have also pulled all our best practices together into a Certificate Course to be able to help the movement spread faster!

2018

Sarafu-Network

Grassroots Economics Foundation helps communities design, deploy, utilize and maintain Community Asset Vouchers, which are customizable tokenized claims against redemption. We also support communities to connect CAVs and CICs into decentralized economies and share certified data for markets and impacts.

2020

Red Cross Adoption

Mukuru Kayaba and Kisauni Mombasa were the first sites that the Red Cross began to pilot and introduce Community Inclusion Currencies via Community Asset Vouchers implemented in partnership with Grassroots Economics Foundation. The number of registered users grew to over 50,000 and helped support communities facing economic downturns due to covid.

2024

Commitment Pooling

Learning cyber-social protocols based on indigenous rotational labor practices that enable exchange between Community Asset Vouchers (as formalized commitments) - Sarafu.network becomes a polycentric eco-system of pools and commitments using Celo Blockchain.