What is Njangi?
“Njangi” is a Cameroonian term for an institutional practice whereby individuals decide to come together usually to form a group that meets on a regular basis for the purpose of saving and/or raising money for the mutual benefit of all participants. It is an old African practice of money management that strives to economically empower her members. In French-speaking Cameroon, it’s known as “tontine”.
How Njangis work?
Njangis are mostly created based on trust and mutual support, with the principal objective being to economically empower each other.
Njangis could be weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly and the regularity of such meetings is usually pre-determined at the beginning of the njangi
During the Njangi meetings, members make financial contributions which are then handed over to one member of the njangi group every meeting.
The amount of the financial contribution from members is pre-determined at the beginning of the njangi, and the beneficiary of the njangi may be pre-determined at the beginning of the njangi or determined during each njangi meeting. Njangi beneficiaries may be determined by ballot, requests or through an assessment of the problems at hand of the Njangi members.
At the end of a njangi session, all members do benefit from the njangi, and the amount benefited will be equal to the amount contributed by each member, without any excess or interest.
Summarily, a njangi could be viewed as a thrift practice that serves to informally provide financial benefits to its participants without the constraints or burden of the formal financial system. Njangi is not a financial institution like a bank and does not receive financial deposits from members of the public. Njangi is a practice that encourages economic and financial empowerment of her members and unlike a bank, there is no financial interest charges or profit making from Njangis.
Njangis in Cameroon
‘Njangi’ is an important binding force of the Cameroonian people, encouraging economic and social empowerment.
As long as anyone can remember, communities in Cameroon have had a history of networks or solidarity groups that facilitates the pooling together of financial resources that enable individual members of such groups to utilize such financial resources to fulfill their dreams. The traditional framework of these solidarity groups have existed within cultural associations. The practice of njangi has however evolved over the years and can now be seen among non-cultural groups, including other social organizations, Alumni, neighbors, etc.
A few popular njangis that our Founder/Executive Director (@mr-greens) belongs to include;
- GEOPHIC – A monthly njangi that was founded by teachers of Geology, Physics, Electricity and Chemistry of Government High School Bali in the North West Region of Cameroon.
- Teken New-Layout Know Your Neighbors: A monthly Njangi of inhabitants of Teken Community in Mile 4 Nkwen Bamenda of the North West Region of Cameroon
- Teken Veteran Njangi: A weekly Njangi of veteran footballers of Teken Community.
- One Family Njangi: A monthly family njangi of descendants of Tah Shey’s family.
Steemit Njangi
The idea of Steemit Njangi is inspired by the success of the Cameroonian njangi system. The way the Njangi is intended to function is not yet fully defined but for now, the concept is aimed at recruiting, retaining and empowering steemians to grow on the steem blockchain.
Besides creating high quality content and social networking, lots of Steemians are on the blockchain for the money and if we must keep them to be active on the blockchain, then we must derive diverse strategies for them to make money.
The raison d’être for starting a Steemit Njangi are;
- To retain Steemians to Steemit
- To economically empower Steemians
- To build solidarity and a strong support system among Njangi steemians across the globe.
How Steemit Njangi is going to work
The Steemit Njangi will be a weekly Njangi that holds every Sunday during which one person will benefit. The weekly beneficiary list of the njangi will be created based on request from the njangi members. However, subsequent Njangi beneficiary lists will be created via a transparent ballot.
The beta phase of the njangi is expected to run for 5 months with 22 members maximum
Every Sunday;
- The Njangi beneficiary will write and publish a post detailing what he/she will do with 220 Steem that will be contributed by the Njangi members as well as what he/she will do with the rewards from his Njangi Beneficiary Post payout.
- All Njangi members will comment, upvote and resteem the Njangi Beneficiary Post that is written by the Njangi beneficiary detailing who he is and what he is going to do with the 220 Steem and Njangi Beneficiary Post payout. This implies the Njangi Beneficiary Post will get 22 upvotes, 22 resteems and 22 comments from the 22 Njangi members. This is to give the Njangi beneficiary optimum exposure on Steemit.
- Njangi members will send 10 steem to the Njangi beneficiary. It is strongly recommended that 50% of the Steem contributed be used to power-up the Steemian’s account whereas the beneficiary can decide to use the remaining 50% for any other purpose which he/she will clearly state in a Njangi beneficiary post.
- We look forward to collaborating with Steemit Team so that they can upvote the Njangi Beneficiary Post once every week. If our collaboration is approved, then the Steemit Team via @steemitblog/ @steemcurator01 will upvote the Njangi Beneficiary Post to improve the post rewards so as to enable the beneficiary to be able to realize her goal as well as power up his/her account. However, any suggestions on how to improve the post rewards from Steemit Team will be very much appreciated.
NB: The Njangi Beneficiary Post is the post written by the Njangi beneficiary detailing what he/she will do with the Steem Njangi and the post payout
Membership
As earlier mentioned, Njangis are built on trust and mutual support to help each other grow but to become a member of the Steemit Njangi the steemian must be posting regularly.
However, we are suggesting that each Njangi session should be made up of 33.33% Advanced Steemians, 33.33% Intermediate Steemians and 33.33% Newbies. This is to make sure that the advanced Steemians can teach and support the the Intermediate Steemians to become advanced and likewise upgrade the Newbies to intermediate.
If this membership principle is applied, then we will realize that at the end of the Njangi session, there will be 66.66% Advanced Steemians, 33.33% Intermediate Steemians and 0.00% Newbies who will then break into two groups and create two new Njangis that will recruit, train and empower more Newbies and Intermediate Steemians to be outstanding on the blockchain.
For the beta phase of the Njangi, we will be inviting 22 Steemians from around the globe to participate in the testing so that when the beta phase is done, the 22 participants can start Njangis in their respective continents, countries and regions.
There may be other membership rules in the future but since the Steemit Njangi is still in its beta phase, we wouldn’t want to put in place many rules for Steemians to become members of the Njangi. However, we will work together with other Njangi members to put in place some basic rules that will make the Steemit Njangi a reputable, supportive and worthwhile scheme.
Njangi Patrons
To give the Njangi more economic weight via the Njangi Beneficiary Post rewards, we will be soliciting the support of big weight Steemians. These Steemians are not members of the Njangi but will be given an honorary role for patronizing the Njangi since they will be upvoting the weekly Njangi Beneficiary Post.
We are currently open to questions and ideas that can help to make this African inspired dream a reality.
Steemit Njangi Potential membership List
If you are interested in participating in the beta phase of the Steemit Njangi, please notify us with a comment below. However, we are currently thinking of the following steemians
Steemit Njangi Potential Patrons List
Please, notify us if you know any Steemians who are willing to support a cause like this
Want to support a project that is actively fighting COVID-19 as well as educating and empowering women and girls?
You can learn more about our 1000 COVID-19 Reusable Face Masks Project here; https://steempeak.com/coronavirus/@thegreens/distribution-of-free-covid-19-reusable-face-masks-to-the-earth-rangers-idps-and-have-nots-of-teken-community
We sincerely want to thank our supporters of this project. Our hearts 💞 go out to;
- @pennsif and @adollaraday
- @nainaztengra
- The Steemit Team ( @steemitblog, @steemcurator01, @steemcurator02, etc)
- @canadian-coconut
- @vipnata and all Steemians who are upvoting, resteeming and donating to our cause.
Enjoy 😉 more about our 1000 Reusable Face Masks 🎭 Project by watching this video
You can also support us on GivingWay
The Greens is a grassroots environmental organization that strives to educate, inspire and engage young people to take action to combat climate change and be at the forefront of biodiversity conservation and waste management.
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A very interesting project.
Would you be looking to focus this on Cameroon or west Africa in time?
The Steemit Team
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The beta phase of the Njangi is going to have a global scope so that Steemians from across the globe can learn how this African scheme has accelerated economic development across the continent.
However, the first 22 members who signup for the beta phase of the scheme will determine its geographic scope but it’s our wish that we have at least two to three steemians from the other continents participating in this beta phase. Thanks for the endorsement and support @steemitblog
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This is very interesting project, I recommend to people seeing this 100% as long as it’s build on trust since it involves money, in Uganda here it’s very common, am part of one group where every week a member gets money from a group of 10 , which at the end of the day we want to see results, it helps members to uplift each other and learn more saving skills.i support this initiative 👏
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This is awesome and glad to know Njangi is an African thing and takes place all over the African continent.’ Now is the time to make it go global and be known by all just like banking and finance.
Through #Steem, we will make a big difference
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Such an interesting project. In Nigeria here where it is usually difficult to qualify for bank loans, Njangi is the most popular way to raise capital among business people. We do not have a local name for it, but it is loosely called "meeting." It's especially done among trusted groups such as trade or market associations, friends group or other mutual group of people. The single fundamental element of it is trust, and that is why it is usually done within close circles. Kudos with the project. Hope it works out well here. @thegreens.
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I believe we have put in place different parameters to make it a big success on #Steemit.
But what’s most interesting is the fact that through #Steemit Njangi, newbies are going to get more exposure and rapidly climb the Steem ladder.
It will be awesome if some experienced and newbie steemians from @steemalive join the pioneer beta version of the scheme.
I think we need that creativity you’ve got 😎
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