Tap and Reposition Youth (TRY)

Executive Summary

”Tap and Reposition Youth (TRY) was a multiphase initiative undertaken by the Population Council and K-Rep Development Agency (KDA), the oldest and largest microfinance institution in Kenya. The overall aim of the project was to reduce adolescents’ vulnerabilities to adverse social and reproductive health outcomes, including HIV infection, by improving their livelihoods options. The project was launched in low-income and slum areas of Nairobi, Kenya, where rates of HIV infection are alarming and where young women are disproportionately affected.

TRY targeted out-of-school adolescent girls and young women aged 16–22. Initially, the microfinance model was an adaptation of the adult juhudi group based savings and lending model. The TRY model evolved over the course of the experiment, moving from a minimalist savings and credit model to one that expanded upon social support and eventually responded to the particular needs of its vulnerable clientele.”

Some of the lessons learned

It taught a number of useful lessons about the heterogeneity of adolescent girls living in the same urban environment, the importance to these girls of savings, of mentorship, and of staged interventions that support them as they make the transition to adulthood.

The Heterogeneity of
Adolescent Urban Girls

Adolescents are a particularly heterogeneous group, facing diverse circumstances even within the same limited environment. The instability of their living arrangements and personal relationships indicates a need for great flexibility in programmes designed to serve them.

The Importance of a Place
to Save

The evolution of TRY underscored the realization that a voluntary savings opportunity is universally and highly valued among the girls, regardless of their circumstances. For many girls, their engagement in a savings group was also their first form of civic participation, which suggests that microfinance and other financial institutions reaching out to engage vulnerable girls should be mindful of these girls’ lack of contact with other socialiszing and supportive organiszations.

Social Support and Mentoring

The TRY experiment revealed girls’ need for adult mentors and confidantes. It made clear that those serving as mentors should not have simultaneous and competing roles. Programmes seeking to offer social support should distinguish clearly between the roles of credit officer and mentor because the girls need to be able
to discuss the problems they have with savings, loans, and other financial demands and not feel that they have to hide these problems from their new adult friends. Mentors should be chosen with girls’ requirements in mind: They need someone they can talk with about diverse subjects, someone who is not concerned about their loan repayments but is concerned about their ability to make their way to adulthood. The most successful TRY mentors were those who lived in the girls’ community, who understood the circumstances they face, and
who were happy to have a part-time job as a source of small, regular income.

Microfinance Institutions and Their Ability to Stretch

The TRY experience suggests that the classical group-lending model may be appropriate for more mature, less
vulnerable adolescent girls and young women but may be impractical and even hostile to the most vulnerable adolescent girls. There is therefore a need for finance institution to be flexibility in order to reach the most vulnerable groups.

Programming for Differing Conditions and Evolving
Capacities

Girls’ capacities are as diverse as their situations. For some adolescent girls a relatively demanding adult microfinance model will work while for others it will not. The project suggest a staged model designed for accommodating girls in different circumstances, with different support needs and with different levels of capability.