Zimbabwe Women Gain Power with Microcredit Program
Jerina Jongomani paused only briefly from her perch under the Amarula tree to rise in response to a question: How has this Village Savings & Loan program affected the lives of women in the village of Nedzewa?
As she rose, Jongomani’s pride and dignity became increasingly apparent.
“This program has made a very important difference in the lives of the women here,” said the 59-year-old widow, grandmother and elected leader of several savings groups. “Women here would have been miserable without it. Many of us can now buy tea, which we couldn’t do before,” she continued.
“You can come to my house and see pots and pans now – even blankets. But what is most important,” she said, nodding in the direction of the other women gathered by the bank of a river; “is that we women now own cattle. We now own goats. This was just never possible before.
“Many of us now have cash so we don’t have to bother men for money. It has made all the difference in the world.”
In addition to the unprecedented, the program also supports the seemingly mundane. The school fees of the children get paid. Pots, pans and dishes get bought for the first time. And, of course, in an area where many have chronic diseases, including HIV AIDS, medicines and other health care can be bought.
Ten savings groups operate here. They have joined to form a cluster to leverage their savings and investments more effectively. The gains have been nothing short of fantastic. At a time when hyper-inflation has rapidly eroded any savings in Zimbabwe, Village Savings & Loans groups have become the most profitable investment in the country – beating commercial banks by far.
Tafirenyika Kakono is CARE’s Assistant Country Director in charge of the economic development programs. “It is actually a much more profitable way to invest and save than regular banks in Zimbabwe these days in this era of hyper inflation,” he said.
“If you put the money in the bank, you get 5 percent interest,” Kakono continued. “But in the VS&L’s, women pay more than 20 percent interest on loans they get. This money is invested in income generating activities and is used to purchase the commodities which inflation is constantly pricing skyward and they manage to get probably the best return on investments and savings in Zimbabwe.”
CARE pioneered Village Savings & Loan and they have proved so popular in many parts of Africa and other developing countries that, in order to keep up with demand for the program, CARE has had to begin training other NGO’s in the methodology.
“People really fell in love with the program,” Kakono said. “We couldn’t cope with the demand for training trainers to begin new groups. This district has 187 savings groups but the program is so popular that we have what we called sprouting groups -- new people wanting to join or form new groups. Right now we have 23 sprouting groups.
“Our projects in Zimbabwe involve 65,000 households – 99 percent of whom are women,” Kakono continued. “We have empowered women to participate and even take ownership of economic decisions in their households. It happens very rapidly. The program really has become self replicating. We have studies that show the projects really empower rural women, who become able to buy food, pay school fees, and make new investments.”
The projects came to the village of Nedzewa in January 2005. There are 240 children including 30 orphans in the group. The project here is named “Fushar,” a Shona word meaning “to preserve.”
Kakono says this village was chosen because of its high rate of HIV/AIDS infection. “The infection rate here is more than 46 percent” he said. “In this way, we felt reasonably sure that every household would have at least one member who either had died or was ill with the disease. So most of the VS&L members, in fact, are also care givers to people who are bed-ridden and chronically ill.”
One such member is Olivia Chippuva, 50, who says that before the program was started, “I was like a baby asking for help from relatives. I had no meaningful cash.” The VS&L lent Chipuva money to plant and grow peanuts and purchase a machine to make peanut butter, which she sells at the market. Olivia has eight children and three grandchildren. Several are sick, she says, and she is grateful to have money for medicine.
There have also been several innovations by the VS&L groups here. When the women’s groups join together into clusters, they start a Social Fund. The women realized that many of them had emergencies, like sudden hospital visits and funerals for people dying from AIDS. The Social Fund provides money for medicine, coffins, and other necessities.
Another innovation includes the Asset Based Savings. The groups often have surplus funds which they use for asset savings – such as acquiring certain commodities in bulk that the members can buy at reduced prices while costs elsewhere are heading through the roof. Still a third innovation is that small groups of children have started forming similar savings associations to buy and sell pencils and other school supplies.
Fifty-three-year-old Eustina Guhwa says the program, in a way, has saved her life by relieving her of constant worry. Guhwa used her loans to improve and enlarge a small farming plot. “For the first time,” she said, “I am living stress free. I can buy food and I don’t have to beg from my husband. My motto is: Don’t just sit on your hands. Even if you have to buy candles to work at night, you must work for what you want.”
Learn more in the October 16th issue of Monday Developments!
