This Women’s day we focus on one of our programmes that has a significant impact on women empowerment; The Voluntary Savings and Loans Programme.
The programme brings together central principles of promoting attitudes of saving, empowering community members in accessing start-up funding, and training people on how to conduct successful income-generation projects.
With women and children as the primary beneficiaries, the project serves to:
– increase monthly income in each household
– to relocate funds from urban to the rural areas
– to provide opportunities for families to access funds for starting up businesses, and
– to support women in starting up small individual businesses.
Some success stories include:
– One of the women managed to buy her own sewing machine in order for her to start off with her Income Generating Activity – sewing clothes and selling them
– A couple of women used their saving money to send their children on a school trips to the Kruger National Park
– One woman managed to extend her house with one room
– Some women used their savings to buy food for the house or school uniforms for their children
– and one woman even managed to send her child to TVEP.
The impacts on the community are significant. Savings and income-generation at the level of the rural community benefits not only the family who are empowered with increased funds and therefore an improvement in the quality of life, but it also improves the situation for the rural community who are able to spend their own money amongst neighbours.
It improves the ability of interested entrepreneurs in the community to access local small-scale funding which no formal financial institution would provide.
The project ensures that income is spent at the community level – improving the ability of local small businesses to turn a profit and reducing the pattern whereby all spending takes place only in urban areas. The project brings people self-dignity through the process of saving and making their own money, it allows people to purchase basic materials and resources which improve their quality of life, and it brings a community together to pool their funds for the strengthening of the economic wealth of them all.
If this interested you and you’d like to donate to our Voluntary Savings Programme then please give us a call so that we can give you more information.
