Empowering women, children and communities
Lucy is a pre-school teacher in her community. Several years ago a New Zealand government-funded project introduced Savings for Transformation (S4T) groups in Lucy’s community, providing community members with a simple, transparent way to save and take small loans for household and community needs. So much has changed in Lucy’s life since.
As she was an active member of the group in her community, Lucy was selected by World Vision to attend additional training on the S4T model.
Lucy returned from the training certified as a community savings agent, supervising and assisting savings groups in several communities.
Not only has Lucy been empowered through this responsibility, but she has also personally experienced the benefit of joining a S4T group in the 20 year old pre-school she teaches in.
A requirement of the S4T group is for members to contribute small amounts to a “social fund” at each sitting, which can be used in any way that has been agreed on by the members.
“Since cyclone Pam destroyed our preschool in 2015 we used a church building as the classroom but money we have saved in the social fund of the savings and loans group in our community (about 132 NZD) was used to purchase all the nails needed to construct a new class room.”
Construction of the classroom has been completed and Lucy and her 13 students can now enjoy their own space.
Lucy also noted that paying for fees and transportation to and from the village used to be big challenges for the community but with the loans obtained in the savings it is easier to travel and she has also noticed that parents are now finding it easier to access money for school fees for their children.
Because of the benefits she has seen and experienced, Lucy says, “I am thinking about travelling to my home island to train communities all that I have learnt so that they too can have savings groups to help them.”