Today was supposed to be a big day. The coaches were going to meet with the village secretary that will be signing over a plot of land to be the permanent girls soccer field. The boy with the epilepsy disorder and delinquent history was being brought back to Shirati for interviewing. I arranged for a 2pm meeting at the SHED office for all the women interested in a microloan.
The electricity has been functioning at about 50% of the time in Shirati so charging electronics and photocopying have been limited. I was happy to be able to copy more of the Swahili translated Room for Compassion media release forms used for anyone I take a picture or video of. I know that it’s not necessary to use this permission slip but feel that since it’s what you have to do in the US, I should do so here too. Killion and I walk over to the main village office which is a crumbling brick building void of finished floors. The secretary is not in, so we hang around Kibwana for a little bit. We don’t end up meeting with the village secretary about the soccer field but the coaches are very positive about it and think it will happen. They say that the town would like the girls team to be called the Shirati Shooting Stars Girls team if they inherit this field, which sounds awesome to me.
The interview with Harun goes well. The boy has small visible scars all over his arms. He answers the interview questions but is sometimes interrupted by his family correcting what he says. He is coherent and speaks up but at times seems confused. He wants to go back to school and I tell him to send more information about the school in Dar es Salaam to the SHED office about the school name and tuition.
I anxiously prepare for the microloan meeting with a brief agenda. Earlier in the morning, I was able to discuss the lending terms with Rosie and Josiah. We discussed the idea of lending out to a group of 5 women at $20 per woman with a repayment period of 3 months. No details on how often the loan will be repaid or interest rate has yet been publicized. I also run out to buy composition notebooks and pens for the women so they can write notes for the meeting. Killion and I were expecting maybe about 5 women or a max of 10. There was a total of 12 women that showed up with a few of them arriving very late. I briefly introduce myself and Room for Compassion and then talk about how microloans can help women create small businesses. I continue to say that we want to seek out the women with the most financial need combined with the best business plans. The groups are to be set up into five women and the loan will be the responsibility of the entire group so that if one woman defaults, the rest of the group must absorb her loan. The microloan solidarity group will be required to meet weekly and repay either weekly or biweekly, business classes will also accompany this model. After the explanation, the women were given a chance to ask questions and they had a lot of good questions. One woman asked if they could just instead do individual loans rather than group ones, another asked if we could raise the initial loan start since it is very low, there was a concern about what the interest rate would be and a question about how to repay the loan.
After the meeting, Killion and I interview each woman individually about her background and her proposal. Some women had ideas about expanding their current business, selling fish, tailoring and even a butcher shop. It is apparent, however, that some of the women have extensive business experience and success while others have not had any work experience and are in dire poverty. I know we need some way to address this difference. After the meeting, our upcoming objectives are to layout a specific interest and principal repayment table so all of the women can see the schedule as they had requested. I want to leave selection of which women will form the first solidarity group to Killion, Rosie and Josiah. I intend on developing basic business classes for Killion or Rosie to teach every 2-4 weeks, probably about marketing, budget management etc. The microloan program excites me but makes me nervous in case something is blatantly wrong. Most of my experience with microfinance is from reading books and articles so I’m very grateful to have found Rosie who has field experience.
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