What’s New with Katrina and Tembwe Village
As a village team member of Tembwe village, we invite you to check back often to follow the successes and challenges of Katrina and other members of the Tembwe 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 Tembwe Village
- After much anxiety over delayed rains, Katrina Mwale and her family brought in a full harvest this year. “We harvested well. It is few who did not harvest well this season in Tembwe.”
- With cash flowing, evidence of the diligence of VSLA groups who stuck out the lean months is everywhere, Katrina says. “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.”
- For the first time this year, Tembwe's 8th graders are attending extra classes in the late afternoon in order to prepare for their high school entrance exams. This, Katrina says, is because the Join My Village scholarships have made students more serious about their learning.
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 (13 of the girls are from Tembwe 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 Tembwe, there are four groups with a total of 66 members and savings to date of $198
Updates from Tembwe Village
- After 13 girls from Tembwe received Join My Village scholarships in December attendance at Tembwe's primary school shot up. Last year, there were 28 girls in the eighth grade. This year there are 36. “Now we are receiving many girls,” says Head Teacher Fred Bondo. “They have been so encouraged with the coming of Join My Village. Even boys are coming.”
- December rains came just in time to save Katrina's tobacco crop. The family has a generous harvest 30 bales. If current prices hold, the family will have a good year.
- Reluctantly, Katrina decided to drop out from her VSLA. Tensions grew high with another VSLA member after Katrina reported the woman for trying to secure a Join My Village scholarship for her daughter through fraud. The scholarship was withdrawn after CARE investigated the case and found Katrina's allegations to be true, but tensions within Tikondane (Chichewa for “love each other”) group rose and Katrina decided to withdraw her savings. CARE is working with the villages to ensure that, in the future, VSLA groups will not penalize whistle-blowers like Katrina.
- Katrina plans to rejoin the group in July when the new groups start up.
- Katrina says Join My Village scholarships have led to the formation of three more VSLA groups in Tembwe. Most of the new members are parents looking for ways to provide additional support to children who received scholarships, and even start saving money so their children can go beyond secondary school some day.
January, 2010
- In spite of hard times, people in Tembwe have already built a female teacher's house. CARE will inspect the house to make sure it meets Ministry of Education standards. If it does, iron sheets, plaster, windows and doors will be delivered to Tembwe to complete the house by the end of January. Tembwe is desperate for a new teacher. This year's school turnout has been higher than ever and Tembwe's four teachers, who already teach two classes each, are overwhelmed. “Close to 200 students have enrolled in the first grade,” says Tennis Phiri, senior group village headman for Tembwe.
- Katrina Mwale's Tikondane (Chichewa for “love one another”) VSLA group – the only all women VSLA in Tembwe – is doing well. “It was only yesterday that we checked and found that we have saved 12,000 Kwacha ($83.33),” Katrina says. “It seemed like a lot because people were really struggling to get money, yet we managed to get that much.”
- Tikondane's members started taking loans in December. Katrina herself says she will wait to start a business until the lean period is over. “People have no money,” she says. “Even if I do the business I don't know if people will be able to buy.”
- Katrina and her husband invested over $700 in fertilizer for their tobacco crop over the summer. After the first heavy rain in November, they transplanted their tobacco from the nursery where it had been growing since August. Then they applied all of their fertilizer. But the rain did not return. After a month, half of the crop had died and the corn they had planted dangled limply towards the ground.
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
- Katrina formed the Tikondane village savings and loan group with 18 other women. Tikondane means “love one another” in Chichewa. “Usually women gossip about each other,” she says. Katrina herself chose the name because she wanted the group to get along. So far they have. “We have saved a lot of money,” she says, though she doesn't know how much.
- Unlike many people in Tembwe, Katrina and her husband, Wilford, haven't had a bad year. Toward the end of the summer they sold their tobacco crop for 300,000 Kwacha (U.S. $2,100). They invested 100,000 Kwacha (U.S. $700) of that in fertilizer and seeds for this year's crop. Another 100,000 was used for a village funeral. The rest they used for themselves. “That's why you can see we are now dressing smartly.”
- Inspired by CARE’s proposal to help build new school facilities, the people of Tembwe have moved forward quickly. “At school we have dug 10 pit latrines,” says Tennis Phiri, senior group village headman for Tembwe. “We have built four teachers' houses. We have sand and we have molded bricks. We have finished the houses but we haven't put on the roofs or the doors.” CARE will soon assist the village in completing the construction.
- Katrina’s 14-year-old daughter just finished her secondary school entrance exams, and is waiting for results. Her 7-year-old son recently had an epileptic seizure, and though she hopes he will be fine, she worries there will be more trips to the hospital and medicines to buy in the years to come.
October, 2009
- “My daughter (Siireni, age 12) is the first person in our family to go to secondary school. All the girls are intelligent, and I want to send them to secondary, but it will be difficult.”
- “Village savings and loan groups are a welcome idea, but the problem I face is some distrust from other women. If CARE can help us get along, then it’s possible for me to join a group. Because I am not from here originally, I am not as comfortable with the other women.”
- “With a loan, I’ll open a grocery. That’s my husband’s business, but right now it’s not operating for a lack of capital. I would do a bakery business, with doughnuts, fritters, that kind of thing.”
- As CARE Malawi's Clement Banda presented the Join My Village program to the meeting in Tembwe, several men wondered why CARE wouldn't hand the town a check. “We thought you would give money -- we are not demanding it but we are begging you,” one man said. Banda's response was colorful. “Overcoming poverty is like hunting a wild pig,” he said. “You can’t just chase it (which he likened to taking a hand out). You have to encircle it (work together). Easy money is easily lost. But when you start small, learn your business and invest in it over time, you can’t fail.”
- One woman in the crowd, Rose Chidzawawa, understood Clement perfectly. “We have already formed a group here, but we lack knowledge,” she said. “We are saving, but we want to start businesses. So CARE is welcome here if you can help us to have our own businesses. We can solve our problems at home if we join our hands and work together.”
- After Rose's speech the meeting ended well. The oldest man in the group struggled to his feet. “May your eyes ears and legs always remember and turn towards this place,” he said. “We are relying on you.”
- Katrina says “My husband and I don’t give the children too many chores, so they can do their studies. My daughter (Siireni, age 12) asks for what she needs to do her school work: she’ll say ‘I need paraffin, I need a pen and notebook.’ My children have a passion for education.”
- Siireni says she enjoys English class, science and math, but struggles with social studies.
September, 2009
- CARE introduced the village savings & loan association (VSLA) program to the members of Tembwe village in late July. Village members, like Katrina, see the VSLA program as a way to save and borrow money so they can start businesses, enabling them to increase their household income and ensure their children can stay in school.
- Katrina is drawing on the struggles of her childhood to give her the courage and determination to try something new, supported by CARE, to ensure her children have a brighter future.
- Katrina is determined to give her seven children the opportunities she did not have, especially when it comes to education.
