Building a Women's Weaving Cooperative

Over the past 6 months, the Mahampy Weavers’ Cooperative Workshop has been a home to a pilot scheme of financial literacy training sessions. Involving 10 female weavers, the sessions included topics such as understanding and planning household spending, budgeting and saving, and investing in their mahampy weaving businesses. These sessions aimed to contribute to a deeper understanding of financial management, a step towards building the foundation for financial resilience of women in Sainte Luce.

Surveys taken both before and after the scheme revealed some exciting results, including an increase of almost 50% in the number of women having 'a lot' of knowledge on investing in their mahampy business, and a 70% increase in women having 'a lot' of knowledge on how their income and expenses differ throughout the year.

In addition to this, SEED Madagascar (SEED), launched an alternative loan system in March 2023 to boost the financial resilience of Mahampy Cooperative members.  These loans cover immediate costs such as food or medication, as well as investment in mahampy reeds to weave new mats. Under the new system, when mats are sold, weavers pay back 10% of income to the Cooperative, 20% towards repaying the loan, and 70% is kept back by the loanee as profit. This system is proving a success and the loan amounts are now doubled.

To increase sales, there have been technical meetings on how to improve the quality of weaved products. As a result, the resellers have continued to visit the mahampy weaving workshops to buy mats. All these strides towards achieving financial resilience among women weavers in the Anosy region, are proving a great success because of the generous donors supporting SEED’s Mahampy weaving initiative.

Madagascar has one of the highest poverty rates in the world, with 77% of the population surviving on less than US$1.90 per day. Mahampy Weavers’ Cooperative seeks to improve the sustainability of mahampy reed weaving and women’s economic empowerment through training sessions and a small loans system.

Financial literacy training is essential for sustainability. As of June 2023, the women in the cooperative are 78% on track to completing this training.The sessions in May and Junediscussed household budgets and including health spending in their logbooks due to the increased prevalence of malaria. Responses from these sessions have been positive, with the women finding them useful to learn about budgeting household spending and saving money for the future.

The women in the Cooperative face many challenges to overcome poverty. Food and financial security are impacted by the lean season, droughts and cyclones, and risks of locusts eating the mahampy reeds. Long reeds are increasingly difficult to source, leading to a rise in price and demand for the necessary mahampy reeds for the Cooperative. 

Mahampy weavers often rely on an informal welfare system which provides small advance loans in exchange for selling their product for less than half the normal price, creating a cycle of debt.With support from SEED, the Cooperative began trialling an alternative loan system in March, enabling the women to receive and generate enough funds to pay unexpected costs, invest in their business, pay back the loan, and still make a profit.The scheme was piloted with 5 women and has been positive so far.4 out of the 5 women in the scheme have now fully paid back their loan, have money remaining, are able to invest in their mats, and do not need to rely on the previous loan system. This new loan system is proving successful in improving economic independence and empowerment for the women in the Cooperative.

Thank you for supporting the Mahampy Weavers Cooperative!