Friends of Kiriba Ecosystem

In Kiriba village, Kilifi, Kenya, a powerful model of ecosystem stewardship is taking root, blending ancestral wisdom, community collaboration, and cutting-edge digital tools. Around 60 families participate in local Mweria group, rotating labor associations where members support one another in home repairs, gardening, infrastructure building, and community care. These groups embody long-standing traditions of mutual aid, where commitments are tracked through trust, memory, and shared intention. At the center of this effort is the Friends of Kiriba Ecosystem Pool, a collective that curates and supports these groups using the Commitment Pooling Protocol—a framework inspired by natural systems like mycorrhizal fungi and traditional social coordination practices. This protocol guides the community’s coordination through four core functions: Curation, Valuation, Limitation, and Exchange. Using the Sarafu Network, a blockchain-based platform developed by Grassroots Economics, community members express and exchange commitments. Each collective action—whether planting food forests, building water features, or restoring sacred forests—is tracked and honored. Stewardship certificates validate these acts, turning them into assets for the commons. Kiriba is becoming a living laboratory for regenerative practices—reviving degraded land, strengthening social bonds, and modeling a new kind of economy rooted in trust, reciprocity and care. It's not just about restoring ecosystems, but also relationships—with the land, each other, and tradition. Kiriba offers a vision of a grassroots-led, abundant future where community, culture, and nature thrive together.

Grassroots Economics: Commitment Pooling

Grassroots Economics is a movement and methodology for community-led resource coordination rooted in ancestral wisdom and living ecosystems. At its heart is the understanding that economies are not just about money they are about relationships, commitments, and shared well-being. We support communities to rediscover and activate commitment pooling a protocol based on collective promises to contribute and care. Just as trees and fungi exchange nutrients in underground networks, communities can pool labor, goods, services, and trust to meet shared needs without relying on centralized systems or external funding. Drawing from traditions like Mweria in Kenya and other rotating labor associations (ROLAs) worldwide, we help revive and adapt these systems using modern tools like mobile technology and blockchain. Our work supports villages, urban neighborhoods, cooperatives, and digital communities to create commons based on four key functions: Curation (what matters), Valuation (how it’s recognized), Limitation (fair access), and Exchange (how commitments are fulfilled). Grassroots Economics is about regenerating ecosystems social, ecological, and economic through reciprocity, resilience, and radical interdependence. It’s a return to the logic of living systems, where abundance flows through trust, not transactions. Whether in a forest, a village, or a digital network, we believe every community holds the capacity to thrive when rooted in care and connected through shared commitments.