The Catholic Church and mobilization of savings for micro-enterprise credit a case study of Ruiru catholic church members development fund

Abstract

This study was about the role of the Catholic Church in the mobilization of savings for the Development of micro-enterprise credit. The study was meant to establish the role the religious organizations can play in uplifting the living standards of the poor members of the society. The church must be in the frontline in terms of fighting poverty. In the Old Testament we are told "if one of your kinsmen in the community is in need in the land which the Lord, your God is giving you, you should not harden your heart nor close your hand to him in his need "Deut. 15:7. The presence of the poor would be against the vision of prosperity promised by God to the entire people. Therefore, the church has the cardinal duty to cater for the physical needs of the faithful. However, resources are scarce and therefore it is not possible to ditch them out for free and hence the need to facilitate the borrowing and lending of financial resources. The study therefore attempted to establish the savings-motivating factors that attract people to save and borrow from a church based organization. The study was also meant to establish whether all people who save with the Ruiru Catholic Church Members Development Fund (RCCMDF) put into proper use the funds borrowed. Havethe loans borrowed made any impact to the lives of Fund members? The research was conducted at Ruiru Municipality about 27 Kms North of Nairobi. A sample size of 90 respondents was drawn using multi-stage cluster sampling procedure and information was obtained from respondents through the use of interviewschedules. The data analysis and presentation entailed the use of tables frequenciesand percentages. Concerningthe social characteristics of the respondents the study found that majority of the RCCMDFmembers 74.44 % were aged between 31 and 50 years. Nearly 8% out of the respondents were aged between 51 - 60 years while only 1 (2%) was over 60 years old. The study also found that 17(18.8%) had some primary education, 59(65.6%) had secondary education and 10(11.1%) had some college level of education. The same community was also benefiting from the entrepreneurs set up after getting the loans from the fund through getting the jobs created therefrom. Most of raw materials used by the entrepreneurs were sourced from the local community. In view of the findings the study gave the following recommendations among others. 1. Training the entrepreneurs on business management, bookkeeping and marketing skills should be introduced. 2. Proper usage of savings services in respect to providing capital reservoir for onward-lending, developing the borrowers (clients) base for the future use in areas like evaluation the credit worthiness of the borrowers among others. 3. Promotion of the micro- enterprise vertical growth through training in various businessaspects. 4. The RCCMDFshould be encouraged to graduate into a village bank. 5. Loan repayment and guarantee policies should be reviewed with a view of making them more friendly and in conformity with the modern loaning systems.