From savings to crayfish marketing: A Temotu family’s tale

January, 25th 2018 Honiara - Daily earning has never been easy for Robert Vilie’s family from Nangu village in Santa Cruz in Temotu Province. That was prior to joining a community savings group in the village. Nangu is located south-southeast of Lata, Temotu’s capital on Santa Cruz Islands in the eastern Solomons. 

Robert Vilie’s family depends entirely on him for their basic needs as he is the only breadwinner in the family. He has three children, Sonia 12, Douglas 5 and 4-year-old Tina.

All three are attending Nangu Primary School which also has a secondary division. And with back to school just days away – schools in the country will resume on Monday 28th January 2018 – Robert’s task is to ensure his children’s school fees, uniforms and stationery are all set before the 2018 academic year begins.

This year the family’s eldest daughter, Sonia 12, will attend standard 4 while Douglas and Tina will attend standard 1 and pre-class respectively.

For Robert’s wife, Lilly Vilie, life was difficult, especially putting their three children through school, but even harder as Nangu is geographically isolated from Temotu’s capital, Lata. For most families in Nangu, Lata is the closest urban centre to go shopping and to involve in other economic activities.

“Lata is an hour fifteen-minute drive by outboard motorboat from Nangu and fuel is currently expensive so we do not often travel to Lata to sell our produce at the market. Our dad has a drinking habit and that would often incur lots of unnecessary spending to the extent that one of our children had to miss school. An instance was when my two little kids had to miss their classes due to unpaid school fees for one term of schooling,” said teary-eyed Lilly, remembering what happened.

However, the family’s major change came when they decided to join the Nangu Savings Group and learned about financial planning and budgeting. The savings group was initiated by World Vision Solomon Islands under its Community Economic Development project and supported by the Australian Government through the Australian NGO Cooperation Program, the Pacific Financial Inclusion Programme and UN Capital Development Fund.

Savings and loan schemes provide an opportunity for members to have improved financial stability in areas where mainstream banking is limited. As part of World Vision’s Economic Development project, the community established a local savings group that enables them to safely save money, manage their expenses, invest in their futures and keep money circulating within the group. 

They can also borrow for essential needs such as school fees, health and special events. The project also provides training and support in financial planning and budgeting. 

Robert’s wife Lilly, was at home when World Vision staff visited their family home at Nangu. She said life has never been the same since joining the Nangu Savings Group adding, now her family can easily meet their children’s school fees, uniforms, school bags and still have enough funds to meet other family commitments.

“Now we can manage our spending wisely and make it a daily family routine to manage our household needs and wants properly. The financial management knowledge gained from joining the savings group has been our game changer as we can now save money for our other commitments,” Mrs Lilly remarked happily.

For the children, they can now carry their books to school in new school bags. “We use to carry our school books in home-made baskets and they often get wet because we had to travel to school by canoe, but our books will be much safer and drier as we now have new school bags to carry them,” said 5-year-old Douglas with a sigh of relief.

Now, after being in the Nangu Savings Group for some time, Robert’s family runs a crayfish business with customers in Honiara. The family received $2,300 Solomon dollars from the recent share out on 30 November 2017, which helped them to purchase a solar-powered freezer for storing their crayfish products. Comprising 25 members, the Nangu Savings Group managed to share out a total of $57,805 Solomon dollars in November last year. The ‘share out’ is an annual celebration during which each member of the group receives their savings from the year.

Like Robert’s family, savings groups have elevated living standards for numerous families and communities across the Solomon Islands, more especially where World Vision’s Community Economic Development projects are operating.

World Vision is a Christian relief, development and advocacy organisation dedicated to working with children, families and communities to overcome poverty and injustice. Inspired by its Christian Values, World Vision is dedicated to working with the world’s most vulnerable people and serve people regardless of their religion, race, ethnicity or gender.