VSLA Microfinance System Introduced In Chache Community

The inhabitants of Chache, a farming community in the Bole-Bamboi Constituency in the Northern Region, has been introduced to the Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA) to encourage financial savings at enhancing community livelihood.

The VSLA, under the Jaksally VSLA project is aimed at increasing access to insurance, savings as well as credit, to build resilience among the most vulnerable households, especially women in Northern Region, targeting 32,074 beneficiaries with 1,119 groups assisted.

The VSLA project is a self-managed and self-capitalized microfinance system working to sustainably empower, reduce poverty, and improve the livelihoods and nutritional status of women and children in various communities.

The members of the group are usually made up of 15 to 25 self-selected individuals who decide on the amount of money to contribute by purchasing shares between one to five shares with the use of a passbook and expected to save together and take small loans from those savings.

The groups operates in annual cycles, of which the accumulated savings and the service charge earnings are shared among members according to the amount each member saved, a measure to resolves outstanding issues and to boost members confidence to save.

Chachewura, Amankwa Iddisah, Chief of the community indicated that, the community was well-known to be a poverty prone area and residents deprived of access to the basic social amenities, which retarded development in the area.

He indicated that the community was mainly a farming one and residents resort to farming as the only means of livelihood, saying 'the introduction of the Jaksally VSLA project would serve as an alternative means of generating income.

Chachewura Iddisah said he had benefited from the Jaksally VSLA project as an old member, saying 'through my efforts Jaksally VSLA project is here to help build the resilience of vulnerable women and children households in the chache community'.

Mr Jerimiah Seidu, Program Coordinator of Jaksally Development Organization, said the Jaksally VSLA has been implemented in four regions comprising the Brong Ahafo, Northern, Upper East and Upper West to promote financial savings among community members to enhance livelihood.

He said VSLA project sought to equip members to acquire business planning skills, financial literacy as well as numeracy knowledge to enable them establish their own business to enhance their economic status as well as promoting household security.

Mr Seidu said the introduction of the VSLA project in the community would help solve some of the developmental challenges of the community by providing members the means to cope with emergencies, build capital and re-create social dynamics to build self-resilience of community members.

Madam Veronica Tarbina, a new member, expressed gratitude to Jaksally for introducing the VSLA project to the Chache community and expressed the hope that members would benefit from the project.

She, however, indicated that, since the introduction of the VSLA project, members have been faced with some challenges and appealed for capacity building on the operations of the VSLA process.