A dedicated micro credit fund for rural Madagascar

In post-cyclone Madagascar, power failures and consequently the loss of Wi-Fi communication is still a constant challenge. Fortunately there is always the option of SMS (or text) as long as mobile service is available. So we currently don't have any up-to-date pictures or photos yet of our latest very exciting new developments.

Fortunately our villages were not much affected by one of the most devastating full-length cyclones, Enawo, that crossed Madagascar from north to south.

Before the cyclone was forming we had already scheduled a longer site visit of Zahana representatives to both villages. They lived for two weeks in the villages, held a series of community meetings and tried to talk with as many households as possible.

We had reported about our two distinctly different pig-raising micro projects in 2016. The village of Fiarenana always had a very active women's group. Three teams of women joined forces to raise mother sows or gilts with the goal of dividing the piglets among the members. This had been very successful with two of the gilts. (The third one had unfortunately died giving birth.)

This very successful micro credit project was keenly observed by other women in their village. Zahana had always hoped to expand the scope of the project and ideally involve every household that might be interested.

But the devil is in the details. Thanks to the visit of our representatives we found out that the current women's group feels there are at full to capacity and cannot take on any new members. The networking of our Zahana representatives on site developed a great solution: four more women's groups where established in the villages. The already well-established women's group in Fiarenana will acts as an advisor and content expert to the new groups. The hands-on work, such as building the new pig pens and raising and feeding the new gilts will be the responsibility of the newly established groups.

In keeping with the successful tradition, Zahana will provide the funding to buy the gilts for the new groups, as soon as they have demonstrated their readiness by building the necessary infrastructure and organizing themselves so they are ready to sign the microcredit contract.

Links:

• Raising smaller piglets to sell a few months later
• The new Microcredit Project in Fiadanana