Saving for Change - "It's a kind of magic"

Salaamaalekum Blog,

Last week I travelled to Tambacounda, an 8 hours drive from Dakar to the East.
A bit dusty, slightly hot (39° C / 102°F), but extremely welcoming.
The R4 pilot is implemented here by our partner ONG La Lumière, preparing the scaling up next year.

Here my colleague and friend Cheikh is taking care of me very well, always inviting me have meals with him and the people at his place (I still haven't really understood who really lives in the house, but I guess that's not so important...).

Tonton (Uncle, as they call him) Cheikh is on the left:

The R4 initiative in Senegal builds on Oxfam's very successful "Saving for Change" program, a community finance initiative involving today over 50 000 women in the country.

We attended 2 groups meetings, in Gourel Boyé and Bidian Koto, both in the Rural Community of Missirah.
The meetings start with a dance, to give energy to the participants and to welcome the visitors:

And (of course?), I was asked to take my turn... (Still some improvements to be made I guess)

And then the magic begins. All of these women are illiterate, they only speak their local language.
But they engage in a very structured process, in which each week they all save 200 CFA ($ 0.40), and use the money to give each other credits to develop income-generating activities... All the conditions are defined by them (interest rates, penalties, etc.), and reimbursement rate is of 100%!
And the reserve in the groups we visited are today of around 50,000 CFA ($ 100).
Pretty impressive, no?

And now we are working with these groups to provide larger credits, insurance, support economic activities...
But more to come in the next posts!

Meeting of the group "Wakilaré"

Treasurer receiving the savings and counting the money

My new friends from Panale

Hello Blog,

As I mentioned in another post, I am mapping civil society actors that could be partners for national policy advocacy on food security and rural resilience, with a special focus on women.

Last week I met the women from the Panale Cooperative - a federation of 30 enterprises working in the transformation of agricultural products, involving more than 100 000 women!
They have been supported by Oxfam for a few years, and now are also helping to diffuse their practices and experience. They themselves do training and support to other interested organizations.

Transformation of agricultural products for women is exactly the target of the credit component of R4.

As experienced practitioners, they are very well positioned to speak up, and support the implementation of better national policies in Senegal.

And they are incredibly welcoming! An initially scheduled 1-hour interview was followed by a complete tour of their warehouse, a visit downtown to one of their shops, and most of all an invitation to lunch to eat my first Chicken Yassa... Delicious!!

Thank you Panale, and look forward to working with you soon!!

With Fatoumata Diop, President of Panale

Week 1 - check

It's already been a week now, and it seems so much has happened already!

I found a place to live with someone who might actually comes from the same village as my Dad in France, had working sessions with at least 10 Oxfam staff (from Senegal, Mali, Cameroun, Nigeria, Ghana, Holland... Overwhelming!), met with several leaders of civil society organizations of Senegal...
And also had my first thiebou diene and yassa chicken, my first visit to the Ngor island, and went to see my first mbalax concert!

Meet Fatima and Katie, the 2 colleagues I work more closely with:

Fatima is originally from Mali, but spent a long time in Canada. After some time in investment banking, she felt she wanted to contribute to social justice for her continent, and came back to Africa to work at Oxfam. She is based in Dakar and is the running the R4 program in Senegal.
Katie is a recent MPP graduate from the Kennedy School! And she also actually worked for WAPPP.
She is Policy Adviser for R4, based in Boston, but traveling regularly to Senegal. She is the one who put together my ToR and organized everything for my arrival here, and it has been great!
Really thanks again Katie!!

Looking forward to week n°2!