Giving Compass' Take:

• News Deeply reports on a group of Kenyan women in a slum area that have created some financial independence and stability to their lives through a savings group.

• What can international development groups and investment experts do to support gender equity? How does creating more daycare centers fit into the equation?

• Here are seven ways you can take action right now to help girls and women.

On a fine afternoon in Nairobi’s Mukuru Fuata Nyayo slum, Roseline Juma is busy preparing vegetables in her makeshift grocery store for customers to buy in the evening as they head home from work.

The 54-year-old mother of seven and grandmother of 10 has been in the grocery business for the past 27 years, working in and around the slum area ...

For most people living in Nairobi’s slums, finding an extra source of income can be very difficult: There is widespread poverty and opportunities are limited. But for this group of women, things are gradually changing.

In 2007, Juma helped form a 20-woman table banking group whose members pool their resources. Table banking involves members of a group meeting up regularly to save and invest together, making loans to one another without having to go through an outside organization.

Initially, Juma’s group each contributed 50 Kenyan shillings ($0.50) a week, saving only what they could from the money their husbands left for them to spend each day. But as the group has taken off, they’ve been able to increase their weekly contribution to 200 shillings ($2) each. The number of members has also grown and they have divided their group into two, which they call the Commercial A & B Self-Help Groups.

Read the full article about empowering women in a Nairobi slum by Dominic Kirui at News Deeply.