After several months of waiting, I received news that we have finally attained Board approval from the Dominican to re-envision our microfinance program! We are shifting away from a full microfinance system and into what is known as Savings and Credit Association or SCA.
This is because our communities are not quite ready to go with a full blown microfinance system. This new system is defined as - Savings and Credit Association is a group of individuals who agree to meet for a defined period of time in order to save and borrow together. SCA's are the poor man's bank, where money is not idle for long but changes hands rapidly, satisfying both consumption and production needs. In other words the groups manages their loan capacity, and repayments. It is a great system to help foster community, which is really why we stumbled using traditional microfinance.
Through this system our goal is much broader and we hope our impact will be much greater, hopefully directly touching over 100 lives! Now we are beginning to finalize the budget...
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