Volunteer Sees Microfinance Project Successes

SAVINGS SUCCESS: Mary Oldham (at left), a CRS Volunteer serving in Uganda on a savings-led microfinance project, is advising the Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC) group supervisor, Annet Kobusinge, on improvements to the groups' records. The group secretary, Kamuthoghera Wilfred, is reviewing the loan ledger, where each loan taken out by a member from the group's savings is recorded. The group chairperson, with other group members, is looking on. All members of the group are widowed. Many make an income by weaving traditional baskets used for food storage. Others farm or sell household items or foodstuffs either in small shops, by the roadside, or from their homes. Wilfred is one of the SILC members who volunteered to have his story told as a SILC success story. He is grateful to CRS for giving out the SILC methodology. Through the loan he received, he was able to increase his brick-making business and better support his seven children and the other five family members who depend on his income. Over a one-year period, the 30 members of this group had saved 859,050 Ugandan Shillings ($505) and have realized a 35 percent profit on their savings from the interest on the 123 loans they had given out to members within their group.

Now that I am settled into Fort Portal, Uganda my life has started to be more routine. It is striking how sometimes I remember I am living in Africa. This morning I was sitting on my patio listening to the birds and watching the ants and one of the lizards that share my compound. The clouds seem just like the ones in Iowa that I remember watching pass by while laying on the grass as a child.

There are homes made of mud and sticks—some with thatched roofs and other with tin sheeting—which is very loud in the rain. There are banana plants and half-finished buildings, piles of bricks, stands with produce for sale, the ubiquitous goat tied to a pole or clump of weeds, people walking, women balancing large items on their heads and often a child on their back, huge bunches of bananas tied to the back of a bicycle, brightly painted buildings, hand-painted signs, bamboo fences, the long horns of the Ankole cows, and the beautiful mountains that I am near—always covered with low clouds.

One of my favorite things I have been able to do is to meet some of the participants of Savings and Internal Lending Communities (SILC), the savings-led microfinance project on which I am working. This past month I met Susan and Flora, who live in villages miles away from each other, but share in common a story of personal success. They both joined savings groups about a year ago. They both have bought livestock through their own efforts. Susan bought beans with a loan from her group. After selling the dried beans for a profit, she paid back her loan and bought a goat. After a year of saving, Flora used the shared profits from her group to buy a piglet.

Before I arrived in Uganda I wondered how SILC would work—if there was enough economic activity in the areas for people to make significant changes. I wondered how people would generate more money if the groups were not given any cash to start with. I do not have a degree in economics, so I know the larger forces at play are beyond my current understanding. But I have found that the people are saving, using the loans to handle immediate needs and to generate more income, and making changes in their own lives.