What’s New with Maseni and Kalimira Village
As a village team member of Kalimira village, we invite you to check back often to follow the successes and challenges of Maseni and other members of the Kalimira 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 Kalimira Village
- In March, Maseni was chosen to help Join My Village recruit and train new Village Savings & Loan Association (VSLA) groups in Kalimira. So far she and another VSLA member are training six new groups. “Right now, people have sold the tobacco and more people are willing to join because business is good.”
- Maseni, who is naturally quite reserved, has found that she has a knack for teaching. “I make sure I am humble enough to make them listen. They are very willing. There is one group that keeps coming to the house saying, when are you going to train us next?”
- The people of Kalimira began building a house for a new female teacher as soon as supplies from Join My Village arrived. In April a team of builders was hard at work on the house's neat brick walls. They plan to finish the house by early June.
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 (6 of the girls are from Kalimira 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 Kalimira, there are seven groups with a total of 107 members and savings to date of $671
Updates from Kalimira Village
- This year's eighth grade class at Kalimira Primary School is nearly twice the size of last year's, something people here attribute to Join My Village scholarships for girls. “There are a number of pupils who have now enrolled in school because they know Join My Village is awarding scholarships to deserving students,” says Graveson Mtuta, who chairs the School Management Committee in Kalimira.
- Olipa Nedson's 16-year-old daughter Regina was unable to return to school last fall because the family could not afford the fees. Regina sat at home while her friends headed back to school. “She was just crying,” Olipa says. “I did not even have an idea of what I could tell her and, when I looked at myself, it was impossible to find the money.” With a Join My Village scholarship, Regina returned to school with the assurance that, as long as she works hard and passes her exams, her fees will be paid for the rest of high school. Inspired, perhaps, by the example set by field officer Henry Mhango, Regina hopes one day to use her education to better the lives of rural Malawians like herself. “She would like to be one of the extension workers, helping with agriculture or aid or maybe a teacher,” Olipa says.
- Cash is flowing again in Kalimira and Maseni's sewing business has picked up. She makes about five dresses a day for between 150 and 250 Kwacha ($1.00 to $1.67). Her customers bring their own fabric and so Maseni didn't need a loan to start the business but she invests as much of her profits as possible with Chikondi VSLA. When Chikondi meets, she invests 250 Kwacha ($1.67), which is the most a member is allowed to buy at once. So far she has saved 3,500 Kwacha ($23.33).
January, 2010
- Maseni's Chikondi (Chichewa for “love”) VSLA group started saving as soon as they finished training in October. To invest in the group, they buy shares. The group decided that each share would be worth 50 Kwacha ($0.35) because they wanted everyone to be able to afford at least one share at weekly meetings.
- Maseni was chosen as the record keeper for her group. It is Maseni who keeps track of the members' savings, placing a red stamp in the neatly ruled columns of her record book for each share bought.
- In all, Chikondi has saved 6,020 Kwacha ($42). Maseni’s savings is 550 Kwacha ($3.82) of the group’s total.
- Maseni used her first loan of 700 Kwacha ($4.90) to buy flour and cooking fat to make mandazis (Chichewa for “doughnuts”) to sell at the primary school. After repaying the loan she came away with a profit of 180 Kwacha ($1.25), which she hopes to reinvest in the VSLA.
- Rainy season is a difficult time to save money in Kalimira. Time and money are invested in planting and tending crops and there is little left over for anything else until the harvest begins in March. Sometimes Maseni's family skips lunch (one of the two meals they eat a day) so that she can buy shares. She sees it as a small sacrifice for the sake of a better future. “It happens sometimes that here at home there is nothing to eat and it is the day to buy shares so I take the money to buy shares – that's the priority.”
- Maseni and her family rested on Christmas day. And they also ate well. “For us, when we say we have prepared for Christmas, it is when we have bought meat. We wake up, eat a little and then we go to pray. Afterward, we come home and feast on nsima (steamy mounds of maize meal similar to Italian polenta) with chicken."
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
- Eleven village savings and loan groups have formed in Kalimira.
- Maseni is part of a 20-person village savings and loan group that consists of men and women. The group has chosen Chikondi as their name, meaning “love” in Chichewa. “We think we are building a relationship within the group,” Maseni says.
- Maseni’s husband is also part of the village savings and loan group. They have agreed to invest separately, but that any loans taken out will go toward growing Maseni’s sewing business.
- Maseni's family has run out of the soy beans they usually prepare for breakfast. They've had to make do with just lunch and dinner. Although times are very tough for most families during this time of year, Felious Mlongoti Nkhunum, the senior group village headman, has hope. “Not all of us have enough but I know we cannot die because we are assisting one another. In that way we shall be saved.”
- People in Kalimira have also started molding bricks for a new teacher's house, in anticipation of their work with CARE to provide the resources to complete the construction.
October, 2009
- In the tenth grade Maseni Yohane sewed clothes to pay for her own school fees. Since then she's taken up knitting. Her plan is to use a loan from her VSLA to buy yarn and cloth to make more clothes. Her dream? To be able to afford a pedal-powered sewing machine.
- In 2007 Malawi became a rare success story for a green revolution in Africa. Going against the advice of donors and international experts, the government had subsidized fertilizer and, just five years after a famine killed thousands of Malawians, the country produced enough surplus corn to export to its neighbors. This year, though, subsidies were distributed too late in many villages in Kasungu. As a result Maseni's family has harvested just half what it did a year ago. “We think it may last until October.” With the number of people in their household they will need to find money for more maize to make it through January.
- For the four months before harvest, odd jobs and Maseni's tailoring will have to tide the family over. Maseni is used to the responsibility and, unlike many husbands in rural Malawi, hers allows her to manage the money she earns. “I manage the money on my own but eventually I tell him that I have made so much. Some I distribute to my sisters so they can have what they want to have. And then, if the money is still there, some is used for household use, like when we go to the maize mill and when we wait for the tobacco to be sold I give some of the money to my husband so that he can use it.”
- Maseni's two younger sisters walk an extra mile to attend school outside of Kalimira. She'd like to send her own children to Kalimira Primary School, once they are old enough. But a few things would have to change: “There is great need for a female teacher – she will be like a role model for the school ... Another issue that needs to be considered for Kalimira School is the addition of more teachers because they are few. At least if pupils see changes in class, they see different teachers coming, they do not see the same one all the time, they will be more motivated. And then there is the issue of school books, there are very few school books.”
- One eighth grade student in Kalimira described what it was like to go to school when the grain stores have run out. Her family can eat two meals on the days they are lucky enough to find odd jobs, called “ganyu.” On the days they don't find jobs, they don't eat. “When I haven't taken food I feel some stomach pains. When you are hungry you feel weak, you feel dizzy, you feel tired, you can't even move your limbs because in your joints all feel lazy. They won't move because you are weak. You can't see because you feel too dizzy.”
September, 2009
- The Kalimira village has already been working to improve their local school facilities. With support from CARE and Join My Village, they hope to attract more female teachers to their village to inspire girls to stay in school.
- Women are beginning to take part in the villages’ development, and look forward to an even greater role in improving their village through participation in CARE’s work.
- Maseni is determined to ensure that her two sisters are able to advance to secondary school, and that her own daughter will receive the best education possible.
