When the women of Fusa in Huruta, Ethiopia, learned of plans to set up a local savings and credit co-operative, there was a high level of interest in the idea in their village.
More than 20 women signed up to undergo the necessary training, and the community itself set about building an office from which the SACCO group could operate.
Following the training programme, which showed the members how they must record all transactions and administer the running of their local SACCO, almost all of the group elected for additional training – so that they would know how to successfully grow fruit and vegetables under irrigated conditions, how to rear poultry, and how to successfully fatten and sell livestock.
Self Help provided them with each with a starter pack of seed with which to begin productions, and within months, the first dividends of their efforts were being seen. ‘I started by growing vegetables, and sold a quantity of onions in the market.
With this money I borrowed from the SACCO, and am now fattening an oxen’, says Kelmwa Adunya, a mother of four.
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