Based on the success of a community savings project set up in 2019 we have now enabled a further 12 Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLA’s) by providing each of them with saving kits and offering business training for small scale business owners in Kajo-Keji. This is a financial empowerment project for both men and women groups (15-25 members) to enable them to acquire easy to access loans to boost their business initiatives. The members of the groups will acquire small, self-managed loans from the common pooled funds (savings). The members might decide to save for a year and distribute (share-off) their savings/profits for that year’s cycle. In other groups, the members may buy some shares or take loans (as agreed by the group) and repayment is normally done with small interest.
The groups are supported with a start-up kit including:
The groups are supported with a start-up kit including:
- Lockbox – a secure container for storing members’ savings (Cash and shares) during meetings.
- Calculator – for calculating savings, loans, and profits (to promote transparency)
- Membership Cards and Passbooks – for each member to track their savings and transactions
- Ledgers/Record Books: – this is the overall management group records – depending on how the group set it up
- $50 per group start up fund.
The cost of this project was $5,600 and was funded entirely from PDH general reserves.
