Support Commitment Pooling Cross-pollination
Between Kenya and India
A call to support Grassroots Economics Foundation’s India learning exchange
Since 2025, Njambi Njoroge our operations director, has been collaborating digitally between Kenya and India as part of the Vidushi Mutualism Fellowship. It’s a two-way learning exchange with Drishtee-supported villages in Assam and Maharashtra, focused on one practical question: how do communities coordinate care, credit, and livelihoods without relying on extractive finance?
Please help us bring Njambi Njoroge to India - to be working on the ground there with local entrepreneurs and mutual-aid networks to co-create a pilot of commitment pooling …. a stewarded, community-governed way to register redeemable commitments (vouchers), keep fair values, enforce commons-friendly limits, and route exchanges safely across clusters.
These are tools for coordination.
Why this matters now
Drishtee villages already run on reciprocity: mutual service, shared logistics, and everyday enterprise that binds people to place. Commitment pooling strengthens that fabric by making promises legible and fulfillable (eggs, childcare hours, repair work, grain, transport seats, even cash-equivalents) so neighbors can seed what they offer, swap what they need, and redeem on time with clear stewardship rules. With simple limits to prevent runs and arbitrage, and transparent receipts for every swap, communities can expand access to essentials while keeping risk low and ownership local.
What we’ll do
Listen & map: sit with village stewards to document real commitments, redemption windows, and guarantor options.
Co-design the pilot: list vouchers in a Commitment Registry, set a Value Index, configure Swap Limits, and stand up a basic, auditable Vault to run seed and swap.
Hands-on practice: host workshops where participants actually seed, swap, and redeem—building relational memory and confidence.
Measure & publish: track fulfillment rates, limit utilization, and at least one routed swap between two village pools; share open templates, field notes, and a public debrief for replication.
What your support unlocks
Your contribution (financial or in-kind) does more than cover travel or workshops. It builds reusable, open tools and a binational learning loop that flows back to Kenya, strengthening our networks at home while honoring India’s local governance and enterprise wisdom. Here’s how you can help:
Seed the pilot (high-impact):
Enable a village social fund for emergency vouchers (care hours, staple foods).
Backstop guarantor pools so higher-risk promises can be listed safely.
Equip the field: printing and translation of voucher templates, steward handbooks, facilitation materials, and basic connectivity for logging receipts.
Invest in stewards: stipends for local coordinators, translators, and youth data reporters; travel between Assam and Maharashtra for cross-pollination.
Open-source the playbook: documentation, diagrams, and code snippets that any cooperative or panchayat can adapt.
If you feel called to be part of this, please reach out: info@grassecon.org. We welcome seed funding, in-kind support, introductions, and invitations to partner communities.
What success looks like (measurable, practical)
A live voucher registry with clear redemption windows and fallback options.
Fair-value swaps completed under limits; high fulfillment rates within agreed windows.
Transparent receipts for every action; auditable logs published for community review.
At least one routed swap between pools in different villages, passing value, limit, and inventory checks end-to-end.
Accountability & care
Grassroots Economics works from a simple ethic: reciprocity, transparency, and non-dominance. Stewardship actions (listing/delisting vouchers, index edits, pauses) are logged; guardrails like timelocks and circuit breakers are in place; and our materials are free to share for communities everywhere. Our facilitation leans on Nonviolent Communication (observations, feelings, needs, clear requests) so the process stays human and conflict can be metabolized into learning.
The bigger picture
This fellowship isn’t “Kenya teaching India.” It’s mutual learning. The practices we test and develop with Drishtee partners will travel back to Kenya - improving our value indices, routing policies, and training for new pools. Village by village, we’re weaving a mycelial network of trust where commitments can move without extraction, and where credit is simply access you earn by contributing to your neighbors. That’s the heart of a regenerative economy: people coordinating to meet needs, restore ecosystems, and strengthen social safety - together.
Be a seeder
Help launch and document this India pilot so others can adapt it—with dignity, clarity, and care.
Contact: info@grassecon.org
Purpose: Vidushi Mutualism Fellowship - India Pilot
Beneficiary: Grassroots Economics Foundation (Kenya)
With your support, we can turn everyday promises into shared resilience—and share the know-how openly, across borders.
Check out Njambi Njoroge speaking here: