A nongovernmental organization has introduced a cashless service for persons living in informal settlements to access sanitary and toilet services.
Dubbed Umande trust the group has introduced beba cards that are swiped and have been availed to slum dwellers to use instead of the normal hard currency or money for sanitary services.
According to Grace Umade from Umande trust, in conjunction with Equity bank the service was introduced a year ago but is slowly penetrating through the slums with kibera leading in penetration levels. Other areas include Mathare, korogocho and kibagare slums.
On his part David Ochieng the chairman Twaweza community project that is spearheading the project in the slums, says the service has so far been embraced in the slums but only works in places that have bio technology toilets which have the swipe machines. He however says the biggest challenge they are facing is lack of knowledge and trust from slum dwellers who only believe beba cards are used to pay fares in public service vehicles and not toilets.
He is however optimistic that the service will soon be embraced by a majority of slum dwellers to reduce the risk of burglary and theft of cash money.
AUTHOR: BEN GUMO