Weaving Culture and Technology: Lessons from Kilifi, Kenya with Grassroots Economics
By Nurfatin Hamzah
As the Community Manager at GainForest, I recently traveled from Malaysia to Kilifi, Kenya, to spend time with our inspiring community partner, Grassroots Economics. The journey itself was unforgettable—a six-hour scenic train ride from Nairobi through Tsavo National Park (where I even spotted some red elephants!) brought me to Mombasa, followed by a two-hour drive along the Kenyan coast to reach Kilifi.
While my colleague—Dr David Dao, co-founder of GainForest—and I arrived from different parts of the world, we shared a common purpose: to learn from Grassroots Economics. For me, this meant shadowing their daily work, deepening my understanding of their blockchain-based voucher system via the Sarafu Network, and exploring how Ecocert (environmental hypercerts)—impact certificates from ecocertain.xyz—could be integrated into their model.
I was particularly interested in how mweria, a traditional practice of mutual aid, is being revived through technology to build a resilient care system. Much of this visit was inspired by Grassroots Economics: Reflection and Practice, a book by William O. Ruddick, the founder of Grassroots Economics. Seeing these ideas in action was both grounding and energizing.
Visionary Approach Workshop
One of the first sessions I joined was with a young, women-led group who had reached out to Grassroots Economics to be part of the Sarafu Network system. To begin the onboarding, Joyce from the team led a Visionary Approach Workshop to help the community reflect on their current situation and envision their future.
We started with an asset mapping activity where the group identified and ranked their local resources—physical, social, economic, skills, nature, and political. Then, they shared their personal and collective goals, reflecting on the map to see what felt achievable with their current resources.
What stood out to me was how much this process centered the community’s own vision. It reinforced how crucial it is to listen. The system doesn't impose a fixed model but adapts to fit the community’s goals. That kind of respect for the local context felt truly meaningful.
At the end of the session, the Grassroots team created a “current realities” list, highlighting gaps, opportunities, and potential resources to support the group’s goals. This helped increase clarity and gave the group something to reflect on before the next workshop.
Commitment Pooling Game
During the same week, I also managed to join the second workshop. We played a simple but impactful card game to demonstrate the difference between bartering and commitment pooling.
In Round 1, everyone had four cards. The goal was to trade with others to collect three matching cards, which could then be exchanged for a seed. While it was fun, it was slow. Some people got stuck, and not everyone received a seed.
In Round 2, we introduced a shared basket. Rather than trading, participants could contribute cards to the basket and take what they needed. This shift led to more seeds for everyone, and much faster. It clearly showed how pooling resources and trust outperforms transactional exchanges.
This exercise helped illustrate how rotational labor and service exchange work in practice. This principle is central to the Sarafu Network. Through the system, people contribute to the group, earn blockchain-based vouchers, and exchange them within or beyond their community, mirroring real-life service exchanges.
The session closed with a beautiful exercise. Each person shared the type of help or service they personally needed, and the group ranked who should be supported first in the next rotational labor. A long ribbon connected them one by one, forming a web of care that visually captured what commitment looks like in practice.
Experiencing Mweria in Action
One of the most meaningful moments of the trip was participating in a mweria, an ancestral practice of the Mijikenda people where community members help one person with a task, and that support is later paid forward to someone else. It’s a beautiful system of rotational labor rooted in mutual care.
That day, around 15 of us gathered to help a community member plant cassava and prepare farming beds. Under the scorching sun, this task would have taken hours alone, especially with the hard, dry soil. But together, we finished in under an hour. It was hot, sweaty, and humbling, but also filled with laughter and teamwork.
At the end of the session, a community champion distributed digital vouchers to the group through the Sarafu Network, recording each person's contribution on the blockchain. The group typically documents each gathering with a short write-up and photos, keeping a simple but powerful record of their efforts.
We ended the day by sharing watermelon—a small but symbolic celebration. After hard work, everything feels sweeter when the work and reward are shared. It was incredible to witness how a blockchain protocol is reviving this fading tradition, giving it new life and meaning in today’s world. Whether it’s farming, building a house, or helping with household tasks, mweria reminds us that care is a collective act.
From Local Insights to Global Connections
This experience in Kilifi sparked new reflections for our work at GainForest. It raised an exciting question: how might we support service exchange not just locally, but across the diverse communities we work with? Could there be ways for groups in different parts of the world to share expertise or offer peer support, building a global web of mutual aid? These possibilities feel especially relevant as we continue designing tools grounded in trust, not just transactions.
During this trip, we also onboarded Grassroots Economics to Ecocert, our environmental hypercert protocol, for one of their community pools in Kilifi. Each group had already been practicing mweria and writing simple reports after each session, which served as proof of impact. With Ecocert, these reports became fundable. Now, anyone can support these communities directly by purchasing a portion of their impact. This would provide tools, materials, or resources that make their work more sustainable. (If you’d like to support, here’s the link.)
I came to realize that my presence there was also a form of mweria. It was an exchange of knowledge, time, and attention. Mutual aid isn’t just about physical work; it’s about listening, sharing ideas, and learning from each other. This experience showed how groups, along with technology, can weave together to create meaningful connections. This kind of collaboration should be central to the Web3 space as well.
Before I left, the Grassroots Economics team gifted me a beautiful piece of fabric printed with a local proverb: “A home with love will never lack blessings.” It perfectly captured what I felt throughout the visit—welcomed and cared for. It reminded me that meaningful systems, whether cultural or technical, grow from love and shared effort.
Towards a GainForest Nature Guild
The idea of a Nature Guild has been growing within GainForest, inspired by initiatives like the Protocol Guild. Protocol Guild is a collective funding mechanism that supports core Ethereum contributors through a transparent, community-curated registry. It shows how distributed contributions can be recognized and sustained across an ecosystem.
My time with Grassroots Economics brought this vision into sharper focus. Their commitment pooling system offered a grounded, real-world example of how mutual exchange can thrive at the community level.
We’re now shaping a version of this for our global community partners. In this guild, contributions like attending community calls, sharing expertise, and uploading data to the Green Globe can be recognized. Adopting Sarafu Network’s voucher system, community members will be able to exchange these contributions. Either offering what they can, and receiving what they need.
We also plan to build an interface where partners can view this shared ‘basket’ and the offerings within it. This would allow the flow of support to be more visible and accessible.
This experience helped us clarify and strengthen the foundation of the GainForest Nature Guild. While adapted to our context, it carries the same spirit of care, collaboration, and reciprocity modeled by Grassroots Economics.
Acknowledgements
A huge thank you to Grassroots Economics, especially to William O. Ruddick for the opportunity to be part of this experience. I’m also deeply grateful to Njambi Njoroge, Amina Godana, Joyce Kamau, Patrick, and George for welcoming me and allowing me to shadow their work. Your generosity in sharing time and knowledge made this experience truly special.