Village Savings and Credit Association Changing Lives of Chiuzira Women in Lilongwe

Tiyanjane Women Village Savings and Credit Association Members Are Able to Support their Families 

Women in the capital, Lilongwe from around Chiuzira village had not known what they thought to be a simple and mare lessons on Village Savings and Credit Association in 2013 would turn them 'Business Managers and food providers' from house keeper or housewives status.

Through Centre for Informal Economy Initiatives (CIEI), Outreach Scout Foundation (OSF) and Women of Action Ministry (WAM) 24 women from Chiuzira were trained in Village Savings and Credit Association, now the course has began bearing fruitful results.

Two years down the line, the club which was named "Tiyanjane" had in its first-share purchase of not less than K2,500 each  as of 2nd November 2013 raised a sum of over K1.4 million which was used for First loan disbursement.

This has enabled all the 24 women in the group to run some small scale business that are supporting their daily lives in their respective families.

Joyce Bamusi Chairlady for Tiyanjane women Village Savings and Credit Association told Malawi Voice that the initiative has helped members of the group to graduate from being housewives to women who are now able to help their families through businesses they do.

"We are able to provide for ourfamilies and that includes paying for school fees for our children some of us are building modern houses." She shared the testimony

She also hailed the initiative of village savings and loan association for being better that than accessing credit from commercial banks, "We previously tried to access loans from banks but it was difficult for us to repay such loans, we were not profiting from such loans"

Apart from individual small scale businesses, Tiyanjane women as group they used their good sum of retained earnings to buy pigs and that now, the group is doing pig farming.

This year, the group is now in second round of share savings of which in their first week managed to raise  more than  K350 thousand.

Centre for Informal Economy Initiative  Executive Director Francis Antonio says OSF, CIEI and WAM have intentions to rollout these initiatives to other districts to allow a lot of women get empowered through such economic activities.