HISTORY OF TRANS KENYA WOMEN SACCO SOCIETY LIMITED

The journey to initiate Trans Kenya Women Sacco society Limited began when we went to pioneer a church in a slum area called Shimo la Tewa in Kitale of Trans Nzoia County. In this area we encountered a number of destitute women and vulnerable youths who were languishing in poverty and haunting down by other socio economic challenges. These challenges forced them to get engaged in illicit activities such prostitution, early marriages, alcohol and drug abuse, violent behavior (GBV)

With passion to help break the vicious circle of poverty and other socio economic factors, we started a counseling centre and encouraged these women to form groups to empower and assist them to begin income generating activities to improve their lives.

In 2007 we initiated a self help group to help empower them through education, skills and identify resources and potential to help improve their lives. The group started with 7 members but grew to 12 the following year. In order to serve them effectively and accommodate more members, the group was transformed to a community based organization (CBO) known as Trans nzoia women initiative. The CBO was committed to helping women enhance their productive capacity and other activities to meet their general socio economic objectives of their families and encourage self reliance to obtain a solid foundation on which to build their lives and find solutions to their problems.

The initiative quickly developed partnerships with other stakeholders such as district social development office, cooperative bank, catholic justice and peace commission, handicapped international, maendeleo ya wanawake among others.


The CBO continued to grow fast with the membership increasing daily. In order to cater for the large number of members joining the initiative, it had to be registered as a savings and credit cooperative society . This was done in May 2011 which enabled us to attain a legal status of a body corporate to enjoy more privileges and enhance partnerships with several other stakeholders.

The Sacco is also appointed as a financial intermediary for women enterprise fund a fund from the government of Kenya for women.

Our vision is to cover the entire western region and north rift by 2015 and eventuary the entire nation by 2030. The Sacco expects to recruit over 1 million members by 2015 and 10 million by 2020.