What’s New with Tamala and Sitolo Village
As a village team member of Sitolo village, we invite you to check back often to follow the successes and challenges of Tamala and other members of the Sitolo 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 Sitolo Village
- Village Savings & Loan Association (VSLA) groups have been slow to take in Sitolo but now, with the harvest coming in, people are beginning to understand the power of the groups. Eunice Zimbiri, a businesswoman and VSLA member in Sitolo started training new groups in April. “They can see people are doing businesses. There are several new businesses in town now.”
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 (11 of the girls are from Sitolo 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 Sitolo, there is one group with a total of 15 members and savings to date of $98
Updates from Sitolo Village
- When Martha Banda was in the eighth grade, she never thought she would be able to pass Malawi’s challenging high school entrance examination. “I didn’t expect that I would make it to high school,” says Martha, who is now 15. “People used to tell us that eighth grade exams are very hard and you can never pass.” But she worked hard and, in December 2008, she was selected for Kafukule Secondary School.
- The news was bittersweet. Martha’s father died just before her results came out. With her dad’s death it was impossible to pay school fees and Martha had to miss a full year of school. “I definitely knew I would not come to high school,” Martha says.
- While her friends left for school, Martha stayed home to work in the fields. “It was very painful. I admired my friends who left for school. I thought I would be doing farming for the rest of my life…. I kept on working hard so that, maybe, if we grew a lot of tobacco, we can pay the fees.”
- In February, Martha received a Join My Village scholarship. The news arrived late and she began her first term of high school just a week before exams began. She borrowed textbooks from her friends while they studied for other subjects. Even after over a year out of school, she passed almost all of her classes, stunning her new teachers. “QUITE Good!!” reads the comment at the bottom of her first report card. No doubt her second term results will be even better.
- Already, Martha some advice for her sister in the eighth grade. “I tell her to work hard,” she says.
- It's clear Martha's sister isn't the only girl who looks up to her. One afternoon this March, 13-year-old Mercy Khalawekha, who also received a Join My Village scholarship and is from Sitolo, seemed to hang on Martha's every word. When Martha says that she likes English and Math, Mercy admits to liking the same subjects. When Martha says she is “very happy” about the scholarship, Mercy says, “I am also very happy.”
- The girls say all of Sitolo celebrated their scholarships, but nobody more so than other girls. “They were happy for us,” Martha says. “If it wasn't for scholarships, girls wouldn't have gone to school. Most girls from my village are hard working but the reason they don't go to high school is that their parents don't support them. If we are home doing nothing, the end result is that we get married.”
January, 2010
- It has been a difficult time for VSLAs in Sitolo this hungry season. Out of the three groups who completed training in October, just one has started saving. “People are busy buying fertilizer now,” says Henry Chingalu Phiri, Sitolo's group village headman. “There is only one man distributing the bags and the line doesn't seem to end.”
- According to Henry Mhango, CARE's field officer in charge of Sitolo, the driving force behind the most active group in the village is a young mother and saloon-keeper named Eunice Zimbiri. “I want them to enjoy the same benefits I enjoy from my business,” Eunice says. “I encourage them to buy shares. I tell them that, in the future, it will pay.”
- On his trips to Sitolo to train VSLA groups in October and November field officer Henry noticed that mzati Tamala Iwalani was absent. Join My Village caught up with Tamala one day at the tidy brick home she shares with her new husband, elementary school teacher Lloyd Banda, in her new village of Champhevu. As much as she wanted to continue with the VSLA in Sitolo, she said, it just didn't make sense. Just to invest 50 Kwacha ($0.35) in her VSLA group in Sitolo, she had to spend four times as much just to get there. “I was very happy in the group,” she says. “But I was spending 200 ($1.39) Kwacha on transport.”
- She still misses Sitolo. “I haven't met people around here,” she says. “I miss chatting with the friends I have known since I was a child.”
- As much as she wishes she could be closer to her business and her friends, Tamala feels that her marriage has brought her closer to her bigger dream of becoming a nurse and starting a family. Few women return to school after marriage, but Tamala's husband has promised to support her to finish high school and continue her studies. “School is my main focus now,” she says. “It's true that my life is going up.”
- Although Tamala has married and left her village, we look forward to following her as she pursues her dream of becoming a nurse.
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
- On September 27 Tamala got married! Beneath an enormous India tree next to the headman's house, Tamala married a primary school teacher from a neighboring village. The people of Sitolo celebrated with music and dancing. Everyone feasted on meat delicacies that are reserved for such special occasions and steamy mounds of Malawi's cornmeal staple, nsima, were passed around.
- Tamala moved to her husband's house – an hour from Sitolo by bicycle taxi – after the wedding. But she hasn't really left Sitolo. Her grocery is still here. And she has joined a VSLA group in Sitolo as well. Her husband has no problem with that. “He encourages me about the business and to go back to school.”
- Tamala aspires to be a leader in her village savings and loan group, even though there are men participating.
- The people of Sitolo village are preparing to build female teachers’ houses. “We have finished molding the bricks,” says Henry Chingalu Phiri, Sitolo's group village headman. “Right now we are building the oven to fire the bricks.”
October, 2009
- At 21, Tamala is well past the average age of marriage for women in rural Malawi. Is she even interested in getting married now? Are the young men of Sitolo intimidated or attracted by her business ambitions? Much of this may depend on how successful her store is.
- During the community's first meeting with CARE it became clear from questions that people had been let down in the past. The gist of their questions seemed to be: We have listened. We are serious. But we need to know: how serious is CARE? “Other organizations have made promises and they never showed up,” one man said. “We want to know whether we are wasting our time.” Others stood. “If this is just a one year project how will girls complete the other three years of secondary school?” “How will we make sure there is no bias to support children who already come from well-to-do families?” “What can CARE do to enhance small businesses?”
- Hunger is still an immediate threat in Sitolo. People here have learned to dread the first months of the year, according to Alfonsina Mwale, a community leader and grandmother who was present at Sitolo's founding. “In January they die of hunger. Sometimes quite a group. I can't say how many. Especially you just see people swelling up, their bodies swelling up and you know they will die. It affects all groups of people.”
September, 2009
- CARE introduced the village savings & loan association (VSLA) program to the members of Sitolo village in late July. Tamala is already leading the way, with a goal of participating in the VSLA program so she can someday have a bricks and mortar store in the local market.
- The village thrives on community participation, and encourages all members to take responsibility for the village’s growth. They see the VSLA program as an opportunity to pool community resources to achieve individual and village goals.
