[PROJECT COMPLETE] LUSOBE Prezenti Almond Round Completion Celo Community Forum Briefing

Community Africa
1

Hey there, wonderful Celo community!

We are ecstatic to announce that Lukenya University School of Business and Economics (LUSOBE) Community Credit Guarantee Fund has officially completed its Prezenti ALMOND 2025 grant, and we would like to share what we’ve accomplished together with your help.

When we started out here, we sought to pilot the replicable and scalable experiential learning and research Community Credit Guarantee Fund model that we had launched in February this year. We asked the Celo community, through Prezenti, to help us actualize our core mission, which is to create a transparent, open-source, and scalable blockchain-based financial model on the Celo network, tailored specifically for educational and humanitarian applications, with strong potential for replication across various community and institutional contexts.

Impact in a nutshell:

The Celo community trusted us with a Pilot grant and we are happy to report that LUSOBE turned Lukenya University’s community into a commitment-pool engine for education—mobilizing time, skills, and campus commerce alongside cash to fund interest-free tuition. With 327 holders, 20 merchants, 3,363 transactions (2,996,831 value), KSh 403,210 in loans, 28 student-collateral tokens, and TVL >5× grant value by 31st October 2025, the program exceeded growth and communications targets, kept students in class, and built a durable, indigenous-aligned financial commons ready to federate with Islamic-finance pools for the next phase.

What we built:

  • LUSOBE Community Credit Guarantee Voucher (voucher address):

https://sarafu.network/vouchers/0xCC94aaFf278eEf04d4ba2f46Eac8C91f8914f644

  • Lukenya University Community Credit Guarantee Commitment Pool (pool address):

https://sarafu.network/pools/0xB1a711609914A6A7281f4B0D0D2a52d82F48d884

This matters because it transforms “fundraising” from being cash-only to commitment pooling, creating a commons of promises that bridges tuition gaps, anchors local trade, and fosters trust.

What Changed on the Ground:

Education continuity, zero interest: Students bridged fees and upkeep without predatory costs.

  • Joseph Onyango (BA Literature, Year 4): “It’s easy to get the loan—it only takes five minutes… If I repay on time, my limit increases.”

  • Athman Wachu (Education, Year 3): “I missed exams before. With Lusobe I paid tuition with no interest and no pressure.”

  • Mercy Mutheu (Education, Year 3): “Lusobe helped me sit for my exams when I had no one to turn to.”

Campus commerce activation: Mess, Student Centre, Coffee House, and other businesses now accept vouchers—closing the loop between tuition support and daily needs.

How we communicated:

Timeline Guardrail:

All work within extended end date (31 Oct 2025) → ON-TIME

The Celo coalition we built:

Sustainability & Next Steps:

  • Pool expansion: grow holders to 500+, merchants to 35+, and add two new categories (e.g., transport and specialized tutoring).

  • Federation: connect LUSOBE with a network of pools for Islamic finance and broader student loan support (profit-and-risk-sharing modes; no interest), enabling inter-pool swaps while keeping governance local.

  • Playbook publication: release a “Campus Commitment Pool Toolkit” for peer institutions.

Our Heartfelt Appreciation

We thank you, the wonderful Celo community, for helping fund the educational dreams and aspirations of our learners and for helping us test and iterate our model. We hope you will join us in making educational finance fairer and more accessible. Asanteni sana (Thank you all very much [Kiswahili]).

You can support us on the Lukenya University Pool:

https://sarafu.network/pools/0xB1a711609914A6A7281f4B0D0D2a52d82F48d884/

6 Likes
2

Beautiful to see the impact of the LUSOBE project.

It hits differently if you’ve gone through the Kenyan education system and didn’t come from a well-off family.

3 Likes
3

That’s so right. We see the impact whenever we help needy students bridge that gap. There are lots of tears both before (hopelessness) and after (joy) receiving the fee assistance.

2 Likes
4

Thanks for sharing! We appreciate being able to work with impactful people, projects and entities like yourselves!

1 Like
5

Thank you so much for the trust and understanding you showed throughout the project. We hope that you continue the great work that you are doing both for the Celo community and the users that we all serve.