Kamara Osman Faisal, GNA
Chache (NR), Oct. 05,
GNA – The inhabitants of Chache, a farming community in the Bole-Bamboi
Constituency in the Northern Region, has been introduced to the Village Savings
and Loans Associations (VSLA) to encourage financial savings at enhancing
community livelihood.
The VSLA, under the
Jaksally VSLA project is aimed at increasing access to insurance, savings as
well as credit, to build resilience among the most vulnerable households,
especially women in Northern Region, targeting 32,074 beneficiaries with 1,119
groups assisted.
The VSLA project is a
self-managed and self-capitalized microfinance system working to sustainably
empower, reduce poverty, and improve the livelihoods and nutritional status of
women and children in various communities.
The members of the
group are usually made up of 15 to 25 self-selected individuals who decide on
the amount of money to contribute by purchasing shares between one to five
shares with the use of a passbook and expected to save together and take small
loans from those savings.
The groups operates in
annual cycles, of which the accumulated savings and the service charge earnings
are shared among members according to the amount each member saved, a measure
to resolves outstanding issues and to boost members confidence to save.
Chachewura, Amankwa
Iddisah, Chief of the community indicated that, the community was well-known to
be a poverty prone area and residents deprived of access to the basic social
amenities, which retarded development in the area.
He indicated that the
community was mainly a farming one and residents resort to farming as the only
means of livelihood, saying “the introduction of the Jaksally VSLA project
would serve as an alternative means of generating income.
Chachewura Iddisah
said he had benefited from the Jaksally VSLA project as an old member, saying
“through my efforts Jaksally VSLA project is here to help build the resilience
of vulnerable women and children households in the chache community”.
Mr Jerimiah Seidu,
Program Coordinator of Jaksally Development Organization, said the Jaksally
VSLA has been implemented in four regions comprising the Brong Ahafo, Northern,
Upper East and Upper West to promote financial savings among community members
to enhance livelihood.
He said VSLA project
sought to equip members to acquire business planning skills, financial literacy
as well as numeracy knowledge to enable them establish their own business to
enhance their economic status as well as promoting household security.
Mr Seidu said the
introduction of the VSLA project in the community would help solve some of the
developmental challenges of the community by providing members the means to
cope with emergencies, build capital and re-create social dynamics to build
self-resilience of community members.
Madam Veronica
Tarbina, a new member, expressed gratitude to Jaksally for introducing the VSLA
project to the Chache community and expressed the hope that members would
benefit from the project.
She, however,
indicated that, since the introduction of the VSLA project, members have been
faced with some challenges and appealed for capacity building on the operations
of the VSLA process.
GNA