Today we spent our time in and around the rural area of Mulanje, the largest tea growing region of Malawi. As we are nearing the end of the rainy season, the area is particularly green and lush and we lucked out with a beautfiul sunny day! OIBM is already serving over 2,000 clients in the Mulanje area with payment and savings services. The tea farmers are currently serviced by a mobile van that docks at the major tea estate once a week. OIBM is in the process of opening a branch in Chitakale at which point an ATM machine will also open directly in the tea estate for our clients.
We started the day by attending an orientation training session for a recently formed trust group in the Chitakale area. The trust group is called Kachere and consists of 8 members, 5 men and 3 women. What I found most notable about the orientation was that they spent the first half of the meeting discussing the clients' rights: the right to transparency, the right to any question to any OIBM representative, the right to information. It was very empowering. They also discussed the importance of savings and how it can provide security.
We were able to meet with a few individual trust group clients in the morning including a woman named Rhoda Matukwiri. Rhoda, age 54, is on her first loan cycle with OIBM and is making her final payment soon. She took out her loan for 10,000 Kwacha (£40). Rhoda runs a small street business in Chitikale selling tomatoes, groceries and fish. She used her loan to purchase additional stock and has really seen an improvement in her business over the past few months. Before, she would make sales of around 2,000 Kwacha a month and now she makes over 3,000 KWA. She
is also able to make regular deposits and already has a total savings of 2,500 KWA. She sells her groceries around town on her bicycle.
Rhoda is a single mother of 3 children. Her eldest 2 are married and her youngest is 12 years old and in primary school. Rhoda is looking forward to taking out her second loan with OIBM and would like 20,000 Kwacha. She currently has a small subsistence plot on which she grows maize as a food crop for her family. She would now like to invest in more money and to be able to grow a cash crop on her land, to diversify her income. The new loan will help her buy fertilizer. Rhoda’s dream is to build a house of her own. We think she will realize this dream soon!
We started the day by attending an orientation training session for a recently formed trust group in the Chitakale area. The trust group is called Kachere and consists of 8 members, 5 men and 3 women. What I found most notable about the orientation was that they spent the first half of the meeting discussing the clients' rights: the right to transparency, the right to any question to any OIBM representative, the right to information. It was very empowering. They also discussed the importance of savings and how it can provide security.
We were able to meet with a few individual trust group clients in the morning including a woman named Rhoda Matukwiri. Rhoda, age 54, is on her first loan cycle with OIBM and is making her final payment soon. She took out her loan for 10,000 Kwacha (£40). Rhoda runs a small street business in Chitikale selling tomatoes, groceries and fish. She used her loan to purchase additional stock and has really seen an improvement in her business over the past few months. Before, she would make sales of around 2,000 Kwacha a month and now she makes over 3,000 KWA. She
is also able to make regular deposits and already has a total savings of 2,500 KWA. She sells her groceries around town on her bicycle.Rhoda is a single mother of 3 children. Her eldest 2 are married and her youngest is 12 years old and in primary school. Rhoda is looking forward to taking out her second loan with OIBM and would like 20,000 Kwacha. She currently has a small subsistence plot on which she grows maize as a food crop for her family. She would now like to invest in more money and to be able to grow a cash crop on her land, to diversify her income. The new loan will help her buy fertilizer. Rhoda’s dream is to build a house of her own. We think she will realize this dream soon!
The highlight of our afternoon was visiting a different type of loan client- a low income private school in the rural area surrounding Chitakale. The Pak Foundation private secondary school took out a loan for 2 million KWA (£8,000) in September. The owner of the school had recently purchased the premises and had applied to the government for a school licence. Unfortunately, due to the appalling conditions this licence was not approved. The owner came to OIBM for a loan to conduct the renovations. Since then, the entire school has been painted, the kitchen has been renovated, a water supply has been installed and desks and supplies have been purchased. They are also installing solar panels. Now the children can read in the evenings; before they just had candles. Before many of the units had no roofs or windows. Now, new iron sheets can be seen everywhere. Before the school was renovated, it had only 22 pupils. Today, there are 108 students, 79 of which are borders, and 11 teachers. By the end of year, they hope to increase this to over 300 students. The new pupils have come from much poorer schools in the surrounding area where the standards are bad and there is poor education. The school is located 10 kilometers from Chitakale and is served by OIBM's mobile branch.
The OIBM regional manager explained to us the challenging climate for these types of institutions- “No other banks will serve these types of schools, they are seen as very risky. However, once other banks see that we are willing to loan to these low income schools and once we have proved it's successful, I'm sure others will follow".
Let's hope that OIBM sets the trend....once again!!
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