Team Peru

Prepare zee tool!

July 20, 2011

Current status: Fully in the mix.

Danielle and I have been workin’ the brain muscles lots and lots these past weeks.  Our vague-ish idea of designing a Community Savings program for some of the local women’s textile associations is really starting to take shape.

For a bit of background: Traditional textiles play a very important role in Peruvian culture and history, and they contribute significantly to the country’s economy.  Such textile making, done almost exclusively by women, brings in household income to many of the indigenous communities of Peru, providing a source of both money and stability.

We’ve been very lucky to partner with Rufada Peru, a local NGO that hosts monthly workshops with three different women’s textile associations.  In these workshops, women learn how to improve their dyeing, threading, weaving, and other skills while strengthening the group’s “ayni“, or spirit of cooperation and solidarity.  Participating in the workshops allows the women to create products that are of the highest quality (aka will bring in a greater return) and preserve a tradition that is being threatened by machine-made, synthetic substitutes.  Rufada has been hoping to make these workshops even better by incorporating basic business training for the ladies… and that’s where we come in.

Our plan: to host several facilitations with the textile association ladies, then conduct a readiness assessment gauging their interest and capacity to begin a group savings program.  The readiness assessment will be part of a tool suite that we’re developing based on coursework, interviews with key stakeholders, and models from other successful community savings programs around the globe.

Such as Pact’s Worth Program

So, what’s the point of starting a savings program in the first place?  Well, we decided to pursue this project based on our belief that saving and financial literacy are effective, sustainable means to self-sufficiency and economic empowerment- no dependency on aid from NGO’s or paying back loan interest to microfinance institutions.  It has been demonstrated that even in the most impoverished communities, women who trust each other and establish (as a group) ways of saving money can create long-term economic security. Savings programs can also lead to lending opportunities, providing women the chance to begin or strengthen a business venture.  The best part is, the programs are designed entirely by the members themselves, each program unique to a group’s culture, economic status, and short and long-term goals.

Coupled with other services like literacy and business training, community savings programs can really kick start economic vitality for impoverished women and families … and we wanna make this happen for the ladies of these three rural, Andean communities who are (quite literally) off the map… BUT only if they want it too!

Oh- and back to the readiness assessment tool; Our ultimate goal is to create something that can be used in any community or situation, most especially for Tina and Team Peru’s Health & Wellness group who have been working with three additional groups of women in the Pampacorral and Chocakoncha neighborhoods. ~Natalie

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