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Many people in the
world's poorest countries have benefited from micro-loans enabling them to set up their own small businesses. Micro-loans are
offered to people who are too poor for normal banks to bother with. Micro-loans are a powerful instrument to lift third-world
communities out of poverty.
For in-depth information about
micro-loans, please see this excellent article
The Promise of Microfinance for Poverty Relief in the Developing
World. |
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How Pageant's Loan Scheme
Works
Pageant's Loan Scheme
differs from most such schemes, in that we only lend to groups of
women in Gambian villages. Each group typically has six women, each
of whom is helped to set up her own small business. Members of the
group can support and encourage each other during the difficult early
days. The group is looked after by a respected village woman, who
keeps track of the loans, and reports back to Pageant. The big
difference with the Pageant scheme is that we do not expect to get
the money back. When the first group repay their loans after six
months, the money becomes available for a further group - and so on.
One of our earliest schemes has now financed small businesses for
eight groups of women.
Please Help With a
Donation
To start a scheme, we need 1,500 dalasis for each of six women,
so a group of six women needs a starting investment of 9,000 dalasis,
or about £210 at the current exchange rate of August 2011.
(You can check exchange rates
here.)
We have several new schemes in the pipeline which you can help to
finance. You can donate any amount to our Loan Scheme online, using your credit
or debit card.
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Click the 'Donate' button to make a
donation to Pageant's Loan Scheme. This takes you to a Virgin Money Giving
page, where you should click on 'Donate now'. Donations will be
kept separate and used only for our Loan Scheme. |
Alternatively you can
send a cheque to Pippa Howard.
Old School, Worthing Road,
Southwater, Horsham, West Sussex. RH13
9DT, UK. Please write 'Pageant Loan' on the back of the cheque. Also if
you are a UK taxpayer, please send us a
GiftAid form
to allow us to reclaim UK Tax. Your donation will be used in the
next scheme to be launched, and we will then get in touch to let
you know details of that scheme.
Pageant had been assisting a
Women's Group
in the Village of Busumbala by funding literacy
and numeracy classes which helps them run small businesses such as
vegetable growing, tie dyeing and other crafts. However, at
that stage, Pageant had not actually provided help in starting any
small
businesses.
When Bakalarr headmaster, Bakary Gitteh,
visited the UK in the summer of 2005, Pippa
showed him a video describing a micro-loan scheme started by two
lady missionaries in South Africa. Their idea was to lend a small
sum of money - 1500 Dalasis was ideal - to each of six ladies in a community,
so that they could each start a small business. Each lady had to
come up with a business idea that she felt she could manage and that
would be supported by the community.
Once it was agreed which ladies
would get the loans, they were lent the money, interest free, for a
period of six months. They had to agree to pay back one sixth - 250 Dalasis -
each month, until at the end of six months all had been repaid. As
long as ALL the money was repaid, it could then be lent out again,
to six more ladies of the community - and so, it could be treated as
community money, as long as it was always repaid.
Bakary was fascinated by the idea and had
watched the video several times. The main drawback from Pageant's
point of view was that it needed a local woman to be the
go-between - a woman who commanded the respect of the local ladies
and who could also talk to us and understand how the scheme was to
work. A man would not do, so Kemo could not, in this instance, be
our representative. Bakary said before he left
that he thought that his wife, Mariama, might act as our go-between
and he would discuss it with her. However, he had not mentioned it
again, so we thought she had not been keen on the idea. We had also
mentioned the scheme in a few places, but no-one had taken it up.
The Bakalarr scheme was started during
Pageant's visit in October 2006, when a very large number of women
crowded into one of the Bakalarr classrooms to hear the details of
how Pageant loan worked from Pippa and Mariama.
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Pippa and Mariama
explaining how the scheme works to the assembled ladies |
On her visit in February 2007, Pippa found
that the first group in the Bakalarr scheme was just coming up to
completion. Mariama assured Pippa that the women were all paying
back the correct amount and on time. Currently (June 2009) the
Bakalarr scheme is on its eighth group of women...
As it happened, the loan scheme at Sika, also coordinated by Mariama
Gitteh, came into operation before the Bakalarr scheme...
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top of page >> |
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Sika Women's Village Market
One of the most successful and long running
loan schemes is a village market run by the women of Sika on the
North Bank. This was started with a Pageant loan in 2005, and is
still doing very well. Pageant has now helped with funding for a new
market place. The market is in use every morning
and all the local women have the opportunity to trade each day.
They say it has transformed their lives.
Read the full story of
Sika
Women's
Village Market |
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Gunjur Loan
Scheme
Pageant has started a new loan scheme in
the village of Gunjur [map]
in the southern part of the Gambia. The
Sheik Hatab Memorial Nursery School has an active "Mothers' Club" associated with it. On a
Pageant visit in April 2009, members of the Mothers' Club said
they were keen to participate in a Pageant Loan Scheme, and Pippa was introduced to Binta Jammeh, the Home Science teacher
of Gunjur Upper Basic School, who agreed to be Pageant's
go-between for the village women. In October 2009 an inaugural
meeting was held and the loan scheme started.
Gunjur women at the inaugural meeting
The loan scheme will run on similar lines
to those in other villages - i.e. Pageant is lending 1,500
Dalasis to each of six ladies, so that they can each start a
small business. Each lady has come up with a business idea that
she feels she can manage and that will be supported by the
community. Pippa met a large group of ladies who were interested
in the loan scheme. The go-between, Binta Jammeh, speaks
excellent English and was able to translate between Pippa and
the Gunjur ladies.
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Binta decided to lead from the front and
take one of the first 'start-up' loans herself. She and the
other five 'start-up' ladies explained their ideas to the group
and all were supported with enthusiasm.
Binta had decided to start a
soap-making business using oil and sodium hydroxide (caustic
soda); two other ladies were buying spaghetti, vegetables and
other items such as dried fish in quantity to make school meals,
one at the nursery school, the other at the Upper Basic School;
another was buying fertiliser in bulk - some to sell in small
quantities to small-time gardeners, the rest to use herself to
improve her own crops; the last two ladies were buying various
provisions in bulk and selling them in small quantities. |
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The 'start-up' group
Binta on extreme right |
Having agreed that all the ladies would
get support we gave out 1,500 Dalasis to each lady, who counted
it and then signed or made her mark on the first page of the
special book made for this loan scheme. Each month the ladies
will return 250 dalasis to Binta and sign / mark the page again
- when all the money has been returned (hopefully after six
months) the money can be lent to six more ladies. The book has
been made with 20 pages - if the loan scheme is still going
after 20 groups we will give them another book!
More Pageant schemes in the pipeline
Pageant is planning to extend
its loan scheme to at least two
more villages. What we need are other people like Mariama and Binta, who
can be our go-between in each new village. It is important that this
person is a female of local authority, who can both command the
respect of the village women and be able to communicate well with us
and understand how the scheme works. It takes time to find the right
people, but they are well worth waiting for, as has been proved by
Mariama.
Background -
Other Loan Schemes
Micro-finance schemes operate in many
countries of Africa, Asia and South America, but they are
particularly common in rural South Africa, where many are
coordinated by the
Small Enterprise
Foundation. Another example in
South Africa is
Women's Development Businesses
(WDB), with microfinance programmes based on
Grameen Bank
schemes in Bangladesh.
A recent development is
lendwithcare.org a joint venture
between charity Care International and the Co-operative
Bank. The idea here is to lend small to moderate amounts of
money to selected small businesses throughout the developing world.
The lender is then paid back their original investment, without
interest, from profits made by the business. The lender then has the
option of reclaiming their money, donating it to Care International
or making it available for further loans.
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