ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT TRAINING COURSE -HANDOUT

THE SHANTYBURG WOMEN'S GROUPS

Shantyburg lies fifteen kilometres outside Cityville. It was settled in the late 1980s by some 10000 squatters who had been expelled from the city. They came from various parts of the state and elsewhere, and had been living in slum settlements in Cityville. They were involved in outbreaks of violence and disorder, so the authorities shifted them out of the city and allocated an area of land for their resettlement. Each family was allocated a small plot, stand pipes were provided and electricity was made available.The people were also given some building materials to help them construct their houses. The settlement was called Shantyburg because it remained half built.

The people remained poor and, although their housing was a little better than their old slums, they were now far away from the city where they had earned their living by petty trading, begging, prostitution and other means. A number of NGOs attempted to provide some assistance but there was no real sense of community and many programmes failed because of communal jealousies.

Mr. X, a foreigner who was working in Cityville, had visited Shantyburg and had given some money to one or two of the poorest families who were in desperate need. In March 2002 he was about to return to Europe, and on his last visit to Shantyburg a large number of poor women crowded round him, asking for money. He realised that he could not help them all and that they needed to help themselves. He therefore suggested that they should try to start regular saving, in groups. He explained how women in many other places had been able to increase their incomes by starting small group loan funds from their regular savings and he said that he would be happy to match their own savings when he next came to Cityville, provided they could show that they had been saving regularly and that they deposited their savings in a joint account in a bank or post office.

Mr. X came back to Shantyburg in August 2002 and found that the women had started two groups. The leaders of one group proudly showed their post office savings bank passbook with a credit balance of $55, made up of five deposits of $11 each, being their monthly savings at a rate of fifty cents for each of the 22 members. Mr. X was very pleased and he gave them another $55 in cash. They agreed that they would deposit this in the post office and continue their own savings. They agreed also to discuss how to start lending to the members from the fund.

Then some members of the other group told him about their experience. They said that 36 members had joined, under the leadership of Mrs. A, a woman who lived in Shantyburg but had had some education. She was a part time social worker for one of the NGOs and could speak some English. Mr. X had met her on some of her previous visits to Shantyburg and had commissioned her to undertake some research survey work, but she was not there on this occasion.

The members of this group said that they had been saving fifty cents a month, but they did not know anything about where the money was or how much they had accumulated.Some of them said that they suspected Mrs. A had stolen it. Mr. X was very disappointed; he said that he would probably be coming again early in 2003 and he hoped they would be able to give some better news then.

In February 2003, Mr. X went to Shantyburg again. He met Mrs. A. She apologised for not being available when Mr. X was there the previous August and showed him a passbook in the joint names of herself and another member. There was a single entry of $150 in January 2003. Mrs. A explained that she had initially been depositing the savings in a passbook account at the Bank in her own name, since the Bank would not permit unregistered groups to open accounts. In January she had shifted the money to a joint account at the Post Office, because some of the group members complained that she was keeping the money for herself.

She said that the 36 members had been saving fifty cents a month, more or less regularly, and they now wanted to know what to do next. She clearly hoped that Mr. X would match the money they had saved, but he did not have the necessary cash and was in any case a little unsure about what was really happening in the group. He was not sure what to do.

Day 6 – Session 20 NORAD

Handout

Mr. X then talked to some of the members of the other group, to whom he had given $55 the previous August. They had a sad tale to tell; apparently the group had started to argue and even to fight immediately after Mr. X had given them the money. After a few days they had decided to break up the group. They had eventually agreed to withdraw the money, divide it up among themselves and disband the group. The two women who were the signatories decided to leave $1 each in the account, in the hope that they might start again, and they sadly showed Mr. X the passbook. He wondered what mistakes he had made and what he should say to the women.

Mr. X made a further visit to Shantyburg in February 2004. He met some of the women from the first group and they said they had never succeeded in starting again; too much ill will had been generated when it broke up.

Mr. X also met some of the members of the second group, although Mrs. A was again not there. They showed him their records; the 36 members had each saved $11.50 or50 cents for each of the 23 months since Mr. X had originally suggested the idea. They had also started lending money from their group fund to one-another as Mr. X had suggested. They had decided to charge themselves three cents per dollar for each month and their total fund now amounted to $504 in cash, savings and outstanding loans. This included their total savings of 36 times $11.50 or $414 and a further $90 of accumulated interest from the loans they had made to oneanother from their fund.

Assignment:

What does this experience tell us about the ways in which outsiders, such as NGOs or well-intentioned foreigners, should and should not promote groups?

Day 6 – Session 20 NORAD