What’s New with Astrid and Katenje Village
As a village team member of Katenje village, we invite you to check back often to follow the successes and challenges of Astrid and other members of the Katenje village as they begin to work with CARE through the Join My Village program. Here’s what’s happening now:
April/May, 2010
April and May have brought many reasons for celebration for the Join My Village communities in Kasungu. The tobacco and maize harvests have been good, there is once again enough food for everyone and the local markets are bustling with new business. Similar to the crops that were planted many months ago and have finally yielded valuable results, the seeds of change planted by the Join My Village program are also starting to bear fruit in a multitude of ways.
With the distribution of 160 girls’ secondary school scholarships, children are studying harder in anticipation of securing their own scholarship in the future. According to Lufina James, member of one of the Village Savings & Loan Association (VSLA) groups in Nguluwe, “Students are more eager to go to class. Parents who were not that keen on school are now keen.” All of this excitement is only heightened by the new construction of teachers’ houses across several of the villages. Communities know that a new teacher’s house guarantees at least one new instructor for their local school – a much needed resource when some teachers are currently instructing over one hundred children per class.
People are finally seeing the results of their committed saving through the VSLA groups and new businesses are popping up across the villages. Katrina Mwale, mzati in Tembwe village, said that evidence of the diligence of VSLA groups who stuck out the lean months is everywhere. “There are so many businesses – samosas (fried pastries filled with meat or vegetables), beer, doughnuts, sugar cane and others too. It's because of Join My Village.”
To celebrate the amazing changes taking place in the Join My Village communities, we brought all ten mzatis together in Kasungu to share their stories of challenge and success, learn from each other and celebrate all they have worked so hard to accomplish this first year of the program. Margret Banda, 8th grader and mzati of Katukula village, probably put it best when she commented on her first trip to Kasungu, “If I have been to Kasungu, I know I can do anything.”
Through this first year of Join My Village, we have indeed seen that anything and everything is possible – and we have only just begun.
Updates from Katenje Village
- New Village Savings & Loan Association (VSLA) groups are forming in Katenje, mzati Astrid Kalinde says. “They are admiring their friends who are doing well. Women in our group are becoming the pride of their families.”
- With the harvest coming in, Astrid's fish business is booming. Other members of her Tiyesele (Chichewa for “let's try”) VSLA group are also thriving. The group has now saved 86,000 Kwacha ($573). In fact, VSLAs are doing well across Katenje – Tiyesele isn't even the top group in town in terms of savings. Another group has saved 126,000 Kwacha ($840).
February/March, 2010
Villages in Kasungu are feeding their guests again. In Malawi, if a village can feed visitors, it does. So, when the plates of nsima and greens with beans and drumsticks stopped this December, we knew it was likely people in the villages were not eating themselves. But, on visits in February and March, villages were once again welcoming guests with local treats. The signs that things are getting better are everywhere. Riverbeds that were dry have filled to bursting. The maize is ripe in the fields. Nutritious pumpkins and squash crowd at the stalks of the tobacco plants. Tobacco hangs to dry in every available shelter: from the ceilings of clinics, classrooms and is strung from the thatch of bedrooms. Though tobacco auctions haven't opened, it can be sold locally to buy small necessities like salt, soap and beans, and there is paying work to be found picking and stitching and drying the leaves. As the cash begins to flow, the small businesses set up by VSLA members are prospering. The members themselves are investing more.
Across Kasungu, communities continue to increase their trust in the Join My Village team. One reason is that the VSLA groups are starting to see results – their savings have grown and their businesses are bringing in new money. Another is that over 110 girls' high school scholarships were distributed in January and February.
The scholarships had a far greater impact than anyone at Join My Village had anticipated. Primary schools saw scores of girls returning to class. Many had not seen the point of finishing primary school, which is free in Malawi, when they knew that their families could not pay for high school.
Hope has indeed returned to the Join My Village communities, and the seeds of change that have been planted over the past nine months are growing strong roots for a promising future.
- Girls Education
- 113 secondary school scholarships distributed to girls across all of the villages (4 of the girls are from Katenje village)
- 15 group village schools have received new reference materials, including English Dictionaries, English Grammar books, World Maps and Blackboard Rulers
- 8 new female teachers’ houses have been planned and materials secured, with a planned completion of June
- Village Savings and Loan Association Groups
- 55 Village Savings & Loans Association Groups have saved a total of $4,707 (over 700,000 Kwacha)!
- This averages out to $6 per person, which is nearly 5% of the average Malawian’s annual income of $160
- In Katenje, there are four groups with a total of 63 members and savings to date of $711
Updates from Katenje Village
- As predicted, in December Astrid’s daughter, Sidolia, passed her exams and was selected to attend high school. Sidolia worried about how her mother would pay her tuition until she learned that she had been chosen for a Join My Village scholarship. “I was very happy when I heard about the scholarship,” she says. “Life is good now. We have seven teachers so we are really learning a lot.”
- Since she became a high school student, Sidolia has noticed that others in the village treat her differently. “Now the primary school girls come to me to ask me to teach them things,” she says.
- The prestige is hardly unearned. Sidolia walks an hour and a half each way to school, leaving before breakfast and waiting to eat her first meal of the day when she returns in the late afternoon. She studies more subjects and brings home more homework than she did in primary school. But she doesn't for a moment take any of it for granted. She knows that there were not enough scholarships for everyone who might have used one.
- Astrid continues to buy shares with her VSLA. She has saved 3,500 Kwacha ($23.33) so far. Each month, she takes a loan to replenish stock for her fish vending business, which slowed down in March. Late heavy rains in March dispersed fish in Bua River, driving up the price Astrid pays fishermen by 25%. In spite of the tough business climate, Sidolia is not allowed to help. “I don't allow her to help,” Astrid says. “She has to focus on her studies.” Now that tobacco is ready, Astrid hopes to take out a loan for 10,000 Kwacha so that she can start a business transporting other farmers' tobacco to the auction floors in the city.
January, 2010
- In November, Astrid borrowed 3,000 Kwacha ($20.83) from Tiyesele (Chichewa for “let’s try”) VSLA group to buy fish. After paying back the loan she came away with a profit of 2,000 Kwacha ($13.89), much more than she had been making earlier in the year.
- This time Astrid didn't work alone. Nestled next to her on a grass mat spread beside their painted house, sat her eighth grade daughter, Sidolia, who has been on holiday from school for the past weeks. It was Sidolia who hefted the fish onto the back of her mother's bicycle and rode around Katenje shouting, “I am selling, I am selling fish!” “I felt very good,” Sidolia says. “I learned so many different things doing the business. It was so exciting to have people buy the fish from me.”
- Sidolia and Astrid are something of a team. When Astrid is asked whether she still plans to open a tea house, she turned to her daughter. “What do you think, Sido?” she asked. “Can we do the restaurant business?” “We can't manage that one yet, mom,” her daughter replied. For now Astrid will continue selling fish.
- On Christmas day, though, Astrid and her family rested. “We went to church,” she says. “We prepared chicken and made thobwa (a sweet, warm millet drink). There was a football match between Katenje and nearby Katukula and traditional dances.
- Katenje has materials ready for the teacher's house that CARE will help build. “We have the bricks and the sand but we don't have iron sheets for the roof and we don't have materials for windows and doors,” says group village headman Mickson Chakave. In late December, CARE met with Mickson and other leaders in Katenje to discuss a plan of action for building the house as well as criteria to award Join My Village secondary school scholarships in Katenje. With the help of one of Katenje's expert builders CARE hopes to have the house ready for a new teacher in February.
December, 2009
The hungry season, which lasts from December until February or March, is a precarious time for people in Kasungu's villages. In years like this one, when the last harvest was scant, grain stores are exhausted by December and new crops will not be ready until March, or sometimes later. All too often, simply focusing on survival trumps plans for the future. Because so many people rely solely upon agriculture, crucial things like education, a roof to keep the rain out and good health – a mother's best intentions – are subject to the whimsy of annual weather systems.
This is exactly the vicious cycle that Join My Village was designed to help break. By introducing the Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) model, villagers (in particular women) have a new opportunity to diversify their incomes by learning how to save their money, earn interest, borrow from their groups and start new businesses that do not rely solely on farming. By enabling women to earn an income for their families, and have a new-found voice in the household’s financial decisions, history has shown that more children, especially girls, have the opportunity to complete their primary educations and often continue onto secondary school. Coupled with the secondary school scholarships to be funded through Join My Village, the program provides a powerful one-two punch to loosen the grip that the “hungry season” has traditionally had on these villages.
Tufwe Mwafulirwa, a veteran VSLA trainer with CARE, has seen groups in rural Malawi grow their savings from nothing to as much as 600,000 Kwacha ($4,166.67) as women establish durable businesses. “This is the peak period in Malawi when money is in the field,” Tufwe says. “But it will pick up (referring to VSLA activities). By May you will really start to see a result.”
November, 2009
- Astrid Kalinde is a member of Tiyesele, meaning “let's try” in Chichewa, village savings and loan group.
- The Tiyesele group has already saved 7,000 Kwacha (U.S. $50), and loaned out 3,000 Kwacha (U.S. $21).
- Astrid has already taken out two loans – the first to buy and sell soft drinks and the second to sell fish. “I had my own businesses before but I had stopped due to lack of capital,” she says. “I am now back in business.”
- The group has chosen a treasurer to look after their savings but she never has much to look after. The group has made a rule that all money must be loaned out within two weeks.
- The people of Katenje have already made enough bricks to build a new school block (classroom), latrines and the teacher's house that CARE is helping to construct.
October, 2009
- After Astrid Kalinde was forced to abandon her dreams of going to high school she wasn't interested in much of anything, including marriage. “I gave up school in 1973 and didn't marry until 1978. The other five years I was in pain.” Not surprisingly, when she did fall in love, it was with a high school teacher. All of this makes her that much angrier when she sees girls leaving school for the sake of early marriages.
- Astrid has already proven her mettle as a business woman in Katenje. She sells fritters and tomatoes in front of her house when she can. After the rain falls she buys fish from the fishermen on the Bua River and trades them for maize at markets in neighboring towns. When the fish are scarce she buys rice from towns in the east to sell in Kasungu. The biggest obstacle for her fish and rice dynasty? “The market places are far,” she says.
- Astrid's youngest daughter is in the eighth grade. Of all seven of her children Astrid says this daughter is the most promising. “I especially have hope for her – she is bright in school.”
- Nowadays, Headman Mickson Chakave says, there is more interest in school. A few years ago two girls from Katenje – one of them Mickson's daughter -- walked long distances to attend secondary school. People wondered why they bothered. Now both women hold salaried jobs in town and that has changed people's attitudes. “In the past children were running from school to go to the traditional dances. Now it is the opposite,” Mickson says.
- One day, the people of Katenje dream of having a high school in their town so that students don't have to walk so many miles to the closest school.
September, 2009
- CARE introduced the village savings & loan association (VSLA) program to the members of Katenje village in late July. Village members, like Astrid, see the VSLA program as a way to save and borrow money so they can start businesses, enabling them to increase their household income.
- When the VSLA program was introduced, Astrid hushed the skeptics by explaining how she had seen the program be successful in other villages.
- Astrid has declared that she wants to participate in the VSLA program so she can start a grocery and tea room in her village. With the increased income, her goal is to ensure the rest of her seven children, and her granddaughters, graduate from high school.
