Steemit Njangi; a Steem tool to retain and reward Steemians

While we look forward to Starting Steem Njangi in the days ahead, i just wanted to brief Steemians once more about what a Njangi is.

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;

1. 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.
2. 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
3. Teken Veteran Njangi: A weekly Njangi of veteran footballers of Teken Community.
4. 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;

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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

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.

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 are working on some basic rules that will make the Steemit Njangi a reputable, supportive and worthwhile scheme.

We are currently open to questions and ideas that can help to make this African inspired dream a reality.

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.