Project EnKindle, Cameroon

Project name: EnKindle Cameroon Project

Project location: Cameroon

Website: http://www.gmmafrica.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GMM-EnKindle-Cameroon

Project description:

The GMM EnKindle Cameroon concern for this project is to enable rural women have a steady flow of income so they can make independent financial decisions. Through Table Banking women will have access to short and long term loans that will fund their individual passions and interests. At the end of one year the women sit to share the profits of the enterprise and use the proceeds to arrange for their children’s education. Income saving, saving and reinvestment are the 3 pillars of success for this program. Income from grants and income earned from the interests of the loans is placed on the table and loaned out immediately enabling the whole model to be self-sustainable.

The main activity of the project is Table Banking. Members of a particular group meet once every month, pool their savings, loan out repayments and other contributions on the table immediately either as long term or short term loans. These contributions made by each member are referred as shares. The members who borrow this money use it to fund individual enterprises. The resources of this project are owned by the women themselves. Our organization arranges for grants which the group uses as startup money to loan to members upon interest. The proceeds made from the profits are shared by the women at the end of every year and this is particularly used for the education of their children. Our organization does not loan out the money to the women. After one year 50 % of the amount given to the women is taken back to benefit new groups and the rest of the money is owned by the women. This is a safe sustainable women empowerment project combined with saving and lending model to enable women fund their individual passions and become financially independent.

Goal and purpose of the project:

This project can begin at any time funding is available and will go on for 24 months. It starts with identifying and formation of women groups in some of the communities of Boyo Division, Cameroon. There will be an evening adult business training program for the women. They receive hands on business training. It is only after the training that individual passions and interests are funded by the loans from Table Banking. Monitoring and evaluation continues throughout the course of the 2 year project. The profits the women make from the interests of the loans shall be shared to the members proportionately. These proceeds will be used by the women to arrange for their children’s school needs.
 

Project Goals and Objectives:

• Access to affordable financing: Members have access to suitable and affordable financial services, insteadof traditional banking loans that would otherwise be too expensive.
• Empowering women:Through strengthening their financial and social conditions in a difficult and challenging context
• Facilitate entrepreneurial and leadership skills:The women are identified and trained for three months in an Adult Business Evening School for Rural Women before engaging in their individual interests
• Steady Monthly Income: The women have a stable monthly income flow. They will borrow from within their group and from their own resources.
• Create a long term change: We will make a true and real difference, not just in the financial conditions of these women, but in their self-confidence by funding individual passions.

Motivation of the applicant / applicant team:

Dreaming of a day rural women shall be able to make independent financial decisions. I personally suffered trying to obtain a good education for myself. My father was poor, had a large family of several wives and children and could not even afford sponsorship for my primary education. I only managed to go through primary and spent several years at home before I could obtain a secondary education. In those days rural women were made to depend on men for any major financial decisions. Had the women in our homestead had a means of income, they would have joined in making education easy for us. The situation has not changed much. I grow up thinking that if I ever had the opportunity, I will change the lot of rural women. I believe that if women are empowered economically, they will make sure their children have a good education.
In 2016 I also attended the kanthari training in India for social change makers. I transformed my concept of women economic empowerment and started the GMM EnKindle Cameroon initiative to provide hands on business and leadership training to rural women which discovers and ignites their passions.

Use of prize money:

The grant money will be used in training hundreds of rural women, most of them illiterate, to be able to make independent financial decisions. They will be able have leadership and independence in their own destinies. The grant money will also be used to upgrade the capital of the women for their individual ventures through Table Banking. Table Banking is a group funding strategy where members of a particular groups meet once a month, pool their savings, borrow immediately from what is on the table to fund their individual ventures. The women control the fund and save themselves from having to borrow money from money lender who sometime charge exorbitant interest rates. The women use the money borrowed from Table Banking to fund their individual ventures and the proceeds from their businesses help them to participate in the education of their children. The project with the women has a lot of strengths:

• The project reaches self-sufficiency from the first day the women receive the start-up funds. They are never to exhaust the capital but build it up. The capital is what they lend out to individual members immediately.
• Capital remains within the group: interest paid on loans remains within the group and builds up the cash assets of the members.
• No woman is forced to do what she is not skilled at. Each member borrows to fund an individual passion or expertise.
• It is democratic, flexible and transparent. Members decide their own rules and decisions are made through mutual agreement.
• It has opportunity for continual economic activity. The women can keep expanding and try other business ventures.
• Peer pressure serves as checks and balances for the smooth functioning of the program.
• The success of the project is measured by the size of the individual ventures the women set up and their impact on their lives and communities.