NDEGE CHAI SACCO

NDEGE CHAI SACCO

Ndege chai Sacco has it origins in the James Finlay Company, the giant tea and flower producing company in Kericho. The Sacco was formed before the company changed its’ name from the African Highlands Produce company to what it is called currently .Today, the Sacco is the biggest in the district.

Membership to the Sacco is open to everyone at a fee of only one hundred shillings and those who are intending to join the Sacco shouldn’t be members of any other Sacco’s elsewhere that carry out the same kinds of business and they should carry with them a copy of their ID cards.

There products include Savings accounts which include personal accounts ,medical accounts, holiday accounts, group accounts ,fixed deposit accounts ,retirement savings account, children’s accounts ,Christmas accounts ,joint accounts, and Akiba kuu accounts .All these savings accounts are not charged ledger fees .

They also give out a variety of loans to their members .They include the normal loans that last for a total of forty eight months with an interest rate of 14% p.a ,additional loan that lasts for the same period with the same interest rates ,emergency loan that lasts for twelve months with an interest rate of 14% P.a ,housing shares and investment loan that lasts up to thirty months with an interest of up to 10% pa ,they give their customers a salary advance loan that lasts for only one month with an interest rate of 8% p.a ,they also give their customers a special  advance that has an interest rate of ten percent per  month, and finally ,they have the jipange loan that last for six months with an interest rate of 3% per month with a maximum amount allowed of two hundred thousand shillings and a minimum amount of ten thousand shillings .

All these loans are formulated on a reducing balance and every loanee meets 1.2% the insurance of cost of his or her loan .The normal and additional loans are paid within thirty days, emergency loans within five days from the day of the receipt of the loan forms provided the applications are filled correctly and all relevant documents attached. The |FOSA advances are processed within fifteen to thirty minutes provided that all requirements are fully met.  

The Sacco’s’ services to its’ members include what they call safe custody  where they charge two hundred shillings per annum ,Bankers checks where they retail the co-operative banks’  bankers’ checks at four hundred and forty shillings and society Bankers’ checks at one hundred shillings .They also have a service that they call the company bill. They pay company bill at a fee of only fifty Kenya shillings.

The Sacco is connected to the co-operative bank network of Sacco link ATMs’. Members can access their cash at any co-op bank ATM country wide and any VISA branded ATM or merchant outlets like supermarkets .They also offer M-Pesa services which apart from sending and receiving money through all M-Pesa outlets, the members can also deposit cash to their FOSA Accounts, make loan repayments and savings using the pay bill option of M-PESA. Using the Sacco’s’ business number  637 637 .It is a simple process of indicating your membership number and the account you are depositing to –whether shares ,loans or FOSA and the account is upgraded automatically .

The Sacco also has the SMS alert services for its’ member which give alerts to each credit to the  FOSA accounts .Guarantors of loanees will also get who default will also get alerts immediately a loanee starts defaulting. Balance enquiries are also possible via SMS by simply texting the word ndegechaisacco to 8004.

The Sacco also has M-Banking services for its’ members .The members are able to make withdrawals from their own FOSA accounts to M-pesa anywhere /anytime by simply dialing *245 harsh and follow very simple steps provided.

On shares and deposits, the Sacco’s Members earn dividends on shares and interest on deposits .This is calculated on a pro-rata formula. The members are also eligible to withdraw loan amounts equal to three times their shares and deposits. The Sacco is committed to provide the best services possible to it’s’ members. They pledge that they will always maintain the back office (BOSA) open from 8.30 am to 5.00pm during the week days and 8.30 to 1.00pm on Saturdays. They also pledge to maintain Front Office (FOSA) open from 8.30 am to 4.00pm on weekdays and from 8.30 am to 1.00pm on Saturdays. They pledge to establish customer care counters at which all enquiries will be attended to; and the necessary documents availed. They also intend to offer excellent services with courtesy, respect, honesty, integrity and impartiality when dealing with membership matters .Customers will be served within fifteen minutes of their visits .All the customers concerns and any information provided will be treated with utmost confidentiality including your personal account details.

On complaint re-dressal, all the Sacco’s customers and general public are advised to lodge genuine complaints and suggestions trough the Sacco’s official contact addresses and phone numbers.

In the event of not being able to receive desired service or feedback from ndege chai office staff, customers can directly lodge their complaints with the chief executive officer, either via written mail, e-mail or phone for prompt resolution either in person or through their elected delegates

WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE FOR CANNING AS A PUNISHMENT IN SCHOOLS

WHAT’S THE ALTERNATIVE FOR CANNING AS A PUNISHMENT IN SHOOLS

Canning has been the mode of correction of habits and behaviors since the dawn of civilization. It is the obvious solution for punishment whenever a young one makes a mistake in the home and sometimes, it goes beyond the young ones in the home .Even elders in some communities have used it as punishment for wrong doers in those communities.

So, it was the obvious choice as punishment for pupils in schools. There had to be away of instilling discipline in the rogue pupils or for any other mistakes that might have risen among the school populations. Inflicting pain on the pupils’ asses to cause them to keep off those habits and behaviors or to cause them to be more careful so that they didn’t repeat those mistakes again. The fear of the pain caused by then cane on their asses caused the pupils to hold tightly o to the right ways of behavior and habits and methods of life in the schools or for the grown ups in the villagers ,to live according to the ways of life that were laid down by the elders of the community.

So, because of this, canning of pupils has been a method of life in Kenyan institutions of learning for a long time and up to now, despite its’ ban by the government, many teachers still use it and advocate for it strongly as the best way of correcting and steering the young people in to the right directions as expected of them by the elders in the society.

Despite the ban on the use of canning as a punishment for mistakes and general wrong doing in schools, but there has to be an alternative way of correcting or punishing wrongdoers in schools. It is this alternative that many of us do not have and hence ,we let the pupils go uncorrected and one time find out about the out come of not being corrected in their lives later for themselves .For those who are already beyond primary and secondary ,that is those who can decide for themselves ,it is possible to drop  the method ,but what about the young ones in the ECD centers ,from baby class to class three?

Otherwise, Punishment for wrong doing in schools will be dropped all together. For late coming to school and missing the lessons and unexplained absenteeism, it might work yes but there are certain situations that it really wouldn’t work .There are some pupils who go beyond the normal misbehaviors of a pupil in a class or school that will need for disciplinary action to be taken against them .should they be punished in schools by the disciplinary masters or should we take them to court and judge and sentence them like fully mature men and women in the villages?

The method had its’ good side and bad side also .We talked to ECD teachers at Bondeni ECD center in Mombasa Ndogo estate in the Nygacho living areas of Kericho town, Mrs. Beatrice Koech and Madam Grace About the issue and what she said was enough proof that soon the country is going to drop the method as a disciplinary action against wrong doing in the school compounds.

The teachers said that canning the pupils, especially in ECD, made the pupils to hate the teachers so that the was hostility between the two and a hostile environment in the class and school in general .They said that this environment eventually lead to the lose of concentration in class work leading to the poor performance in class of the pupil or even stopping to come to school totally of the pupils .When you think that you are correcting the pupils, they could be seeing things their own way.

The teachers said that canning caused the pupils to develop health complications .Some pupils have been reported to have hypersensitive bodies so that ordinary flogging of the pupils caused very extensive effects on their health. Some of them have been reported with body swelling, fainting and and peeing in their pants, worse of all are the psychological effects.

The teachers also said that the method can’t work for everyone in class .There were those pupils whom canning can work on them but there are other pupils whom canning can harm instead of bringing about the general benefits that are expected for the good of everyone in the class or the entire school  .It leaves them feeling very inferior before the others in class and completely destroyed psychologically .Instead of making those pupils to follow the school rules more closely, they start seeing life in a different way, they start shying away from their teachers and seeing not as their teachers and friends anymore but as monsters who enjoy canning you or harming you and who will cane you on site. The corrections that you might think you are trying to make or the school rules that you might be trying to make then to follow isn’t their mind seven.

These experts of ECD told us that while we are working hard to drop canning as a form of action against bad habits and behaviors in schools, but it is going to be hard to drop it totally.

The question is ,how do we punish wrongdoers in class or in school or do we stop this method of punishment altogether and let the teachers to concentrate of teaching the geography, mathematics ,English and the rest of them and leave out discipline? What’s the alternative or do we ban punishment in class for good?

DEVELOPMENTS IN THE ADULT AND CONTINUED EDUCATION DEPARTMENT IN KERICHO DISTRICT

DEVELOPMENTS IN THE ADULT AND CONTINUED EDUCATION DEPARTMENT IN KERICHO DISTRICT

In the earlier days of the introduction of the adult literacy programmes in Kericho district, there were many problems and obstacles that the government had to skip first before they could start assessing the success of the programmes. First and foremost was the task of persuading the illiterate adults to believe and accept that age wasn’t a barrier to learning and their general understanding of what will be taught to them in the classrooms .Many of them had the psychology eep rooted in to them that schooling was for the young ones and that an adult wouldn’t do very well .
Convincing this people to go for the programmes was a very big problem. In adulthood, every body is already too busy in life to find the time to accomplish their every day life’s activities .Winning the families’ daily bread alone takes up to ninety percent of their time, leaving them with only ten percent of the days to share among the other activities in life. Thus, convincing the illiterate adults in to gathering in an adult education classroom was just but another very hard task that needed extra energy and time and perhaps finances in order to achieve it.
That was how it was in the past in kericho, it wasn’t very easy to get them to seat in class for even just one single hour daily, but things are changing with the times. According to the reports that were given to us by the District Adult Education officer, there have been developments which have lead to big psychological changes in the illiterate adult population in the district. According to the officer ,Mr. Gabriel Tum, the adult education department has witnessed among its students population people have are fully committed to learning and they have decided to share their time and follow up strictly with the adult education programmes.
The officer told us that the attending population is very good compared to the total percentage of illiterate adults in the district,it is considered to still be very low only that there is a small rise in the student numbers .The difference is that ,in the past they could gather even twenty or more in a class and then suddenly disappear without reasons or explanations and it wasn’t easy to follow them.
The odd thing about the functioning of the adult and continued education department in the district is that the department doesn’t have even one single adult education center in Kericho town .All their centers are located on the outskirts of the town ,in the villages .
The Department boasts of its few achievements though, First ,the officer told us that they have managed to issue their committed student with proficiency corticated after they sat for a proficiency test .This was done to mark that they were now proficient in their reading ,writing and doing simple calculations .These student are no longer the dump and deaf people they were in the passed but the are people who can fill out forms in the banks ,the post office ,the administration offices and all the others offices where they can be wanted t o some reading and writing and sign this forms very well to .They can do the calculations that go with these activities well too.

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KERICHO HIGHLANDS PRIMARY SCHOOL ANNOUNCE THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF THEIR LAVATORIES

KERICHO HIGHLANDS PRIMARY SCHOOL ANNOUNCE THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF THEIR LAVATORIES

The Kericho highlands primary school, Is the only school in the town or it could be even the whole district that have income generating facilities in their compounds. First, they have a business building that is rented to business people in the town and it earns the school an income in the form of monthly rent of not lest than six thousand shillings in one month. All these monies go entirely into the school account for the benefit of the entire schools’ population .It is a hundred percent school property. The building is currently rented to a chemist, it sells human medicines.

The school has again announced its’ intentions of expanding its income generating facilities. They have announced their intention of commercializing their toilets .They intend to sell lavatory services to the public who run their activities along Temple Road in the town .The toilets are situated directly opposite the Koineei Plaza ,the big building that neighbors the Walter Reed Clinical research Laboratories center ,all these facilities are situated on the same road. Most of the big businesses on this road are banks and the Kenya institute of Management studies College and offices.

The school had earlier on already advertised the tender application opportunities to interested contractors to carry out the necessary renovation activities on the lavatory .The lavatory is situated on a ten by ten feet area of land .The details of the tender were available at the schools offices at a non-refundable fee of two thousand shillings .The fees were said to be only payable via the schools account with the Kenya Commercial  Bank  No. 1119267048 and the tender application documents had to go with the bank deposit slip of the fees .

The completed forms for the application of the tender were supposed to reach the tender box office by the fifth date of the month of September, later than that wouldn’t be accepted.

It wasn’t clearly stated on how the operation of the lavatory would be carried out after the completion of the renovation works .The schools administration didn’t elaborated whether the tenders were for rental of the lavatory of for the renovation services but judging from the state in which the current lavatory is in, it will need a little renovation works done on it. It wasn’t clearly stated whether the school would employ their own staff to take care of the lavatory  whether they would rent it to some one else .

The schools head teacher told us that the money earned from these facilities goes to the payment of the schools bills, including electricity, water and the welfare of the schools population generally. They intend to use these chance to ease the burden of paying for these services and the extra curriculum activities fees on the parents whose children go to this school .So far we haven’t heard of any other schools in the neighborhood with the same kinds of projects .

The staff and school committee and the entire administration of the school have very high hopes in the nature of their projects that perhaps soon they could expand their project to include housing estates, or wholesale shops or hotels or the rest of the kinds of business, just to create an income for the school.

E-SERVICES AT THE KIPSIGIS TEACHERS SACCOIN KERICHO, KENYA

E-SERVICES AT THE KIPSIGIS TEACHERS SACCOIN KERICHO, KENYA

The ATM method of withdrawing money and the SMS methods of banking have become very popular among the people of Kericho Town generally .This is proven by the long queues that can be seen at the ATM points at all the banks in the town .A bigger percentage of the towns banking population prefer to use this machines and mobile phones to the normal traditional methods of banking. The reason being that the machines are more time saving than the normal methods of withdrawing money and the availability of money through the ATMs and  the SMS services on their mobile phones for the twenty four hours of the day throughout the seven days of the week.

The Sacco encourages its members to use the ATM because of its benefits in the reduction of congestion and all the other benefits that will come as a result of the use of the machine.

The Sacco uses a Visa branded ATM card which gives its members an advantage of accessing their money anytime any day and anywhere in the whole world where the visa card is used.

The Customers of the Kipsigis teachers Sacco are not left out in this development s and trend of life. The possibility of withdrawing money at the ATM any time of the day has given the machines more advantages over the traditional method, and hence, many customers of the Sacco Prefer using the ATM. Customers can use the ATM services even at night.

Next is the Mobile phone banking .This methods of banking also have changed life upcountry a great deal .More and more people are turning to the use this method of banking .They are easy and secure than carrying hard cash in the hand .Compared to the time consuming queuing methods of doing the same thing over the counters, plus the expenses of travelling from their distant homes to the Sacco’s office to make simple inquiries. More customers have turned to the use of these methods .The method is popularly known as e-banking where the customers exchange the money electronically over their mobile phones during a transaction.

The Sacco provides these services to its customer’s .They can make inquiries about the state of their accounts with the FOSA, the back offices and co-operative house. They can also know how much they have in their balances .And they can also do more with it.

The customers can also get notifications on their salaries, loans, a check which has matured dividends and more other services which the society continues to add on to the list as time goes on and as they continue developing and their needs changing to match with the times.

The services are intended to reduce congestion at the Sacco’s’ offices.

Although there have been normal break downs   due to mechanical problems in the machines and weaknesses in the networks from the mobile phone service providers and except for the few reports early in the year in other banking institutions whereby it was said that the machines printed the receipts wrongly causing the customers to be overcharged in their accounts, but the machine are expected to be more convenient than the humans who serve the customers over the counters. Many people are taking to mobile banking.

The teachers Sacco ATM has been out of order for  the bigger part of the month of august .This cost a lot of inconveniences to the Sacco’s customers generally. Some of the customers had to go back home without money and spend the weekends the hard way. The Sacco’s administrations office declined to speak about this issue when we visited them for an interview about the problem. The most senior boss at in that office said that he wasn’t willing to say anything about the matter and warned us not to report anything about this matter.

According to the interview between us and the female group four security company guard who was on duty on Saturday, the twenty seventh day of the month of august, when we went to check the machine, It had been in the malfunction state for over two weeks and the staff of the Sacco hadn’t given an explanation for the break down of the machine to their customers up to that date .Other wise the masses in kerihco town are continuing to change to the use of e-money and very soon ,they  could drop the use of hard cash and  use the e-money in their daily lives entirely .

On the society’s’ Development ,The Sacco intents to become a micro credit organization .The products are still being developed and  improved after a successful completion of the feasibility study .The society’s members are encouraged to form groups and open accounts with the FOSA so as to benefit from the project.

MUSIC COPYRIGHT SOCIETY OF KENYA WORKING HARD IN KERICHO TOWN

KERICHO TEA BOYS HIGH SCHOOL IN A CLEAN UP EXERCISE IN KERICHO TOWN,KERICHO,KENYA

The Kericho tea boys high school on the eighteenth date of the month of july had  clean up exercise in kericho town.Students from the school went around the town with plastic bags picking any piece of rubbish that they could set their eyes on.They were supported by  the Kericho youth center and a local theatrics group named Trinato Theatretics group .The exercise was titled "A clean environment ,a healthy life/Mazingira safi maisha bora"


.The exercise was sponsored by various groups and co-operatioration ,others sponsored them financially and others sponsored them in kind.Among the main sponsors wa the Kericho municipal council ,Kericho Youth center,,NEMA,Unilever,Ndege Chai and the Standard Bank. 

 The Guest of honour during the exercise was the Town Clerk.He was represented by the councils Environmental office.His speech was read to the participants by the office.

 The schools does the exercise ones each year,it is on the schools' calender of events .

The school has been doing well generally recently , they will be participating in the Kenya National Music Festival finals in Nairobi this year .This was confirmed to us by the member of staff in-charge ,Mr.Martin Rono.THe member of staff in-charge of sportsm,Mr, Davis Cheboiwa, also confirmed to us that the school has been doing well in rugby and they have been participating in the national levels Finals .


 In their last years exercise,the schools fraternity contributed money that they used to buy food and paid for the medical check ups of street children and street families .They worked in conjuction with the Childrens department and the Kericho District Hospital

This information was given to us by the memebr of the schools staf in-charge Mrs.Susan Limisi.