Iringa Hope visits 2013: Today We Were At Mlafu And Itungi

Today we are off to visit two sites that are working to form SACCOS – Mlafu and Itungi. We are going to visit both of these today since they lie along the same road south of Ilula. The trip starts out with a 45 minute drive down the road towards Dar Es Salaam. As we pass outside of Ilula we take a right hand turn and head up the foot hills towards Mlafu. We drove through the foot hills, past Itungi, then down through a valley and back up another hill to Mlafu. The drive took another 50 minutes from the pavement.

When we got to Mlafu Pastor Daison Mpesa came to greet us. He had been waiting for us to come and was very happy we were visiting. He told us about Mlafu parish, which has about 250 members. Their income averages about 500,000 Tsh ($315) per year. They mainly plant maize and are very aware of the CVP methods. The pastor told us that they have seen that their crop can go from 2-3 bags per acre to 9-12 using the CVP. Still, very few are planting this way because they don’t have the capital needed for the fertilizer, hybrid seed, and spray. They currently have 20 members who have bought shares and paid entrance fees for a SACCOS. Overall they have collected 350,000 Tsh ($220) and are hoping to get over 900,000 by next month. We reminded him that they need 5,000,000 Tsh in capital to start – but then told him that we will contribute 3,200,000 Tsh if they start this year (our funding for this goes away at the end of the year).

We had chai and then went to the church for a meeting of their SACCOS. There were 24 people at the meeting – about 16 members and another 8 or so who are interested and wanted to hear what we had to say. Tom asked if they listen to Radio Furaha and they all said “Yes” and they are enjoying our program a lot. After we introduced ourselves Brown took over and gave a seminar on planning, savings, and buying into a SACCOS.

This group was very lively. Brown is very effective at engaging his audience. After he explained what securities are he asked a couple of the audience members to stand and explain it in hehe, their tribal language. This elicited lots of laughter from everyone. People asked “What are shares?” “What is the difference between securities and entrance fees?” And so on. Towards the end of his talk people started making comments. One man stood up and said, “After your visit last year I couldn’t believe that the idea of your SACCOS was real. I thought you were lying to us.” He went on to say that he had visited with some friends in another SACCOS of ours and now knew it was true – so he came today to join.

They talked some more and decided to work on gathering some more capital. How much could they each contribute? When they added it all up they still thought they were short of the 1,800,000 Tsh that they would need to add to the 3,200,000 Tsh that we would contribute. “Maybe our partner will help us?” When we left them they were debating whether or not it was a good idea to ask for help. Maybe they could raise it somehow?

We asked if anyone needed glasses. Immediately there was a line. We were sorry that we only had a few sizes left. Still there were a lot of people who were happy to get them. We said our farewells to this group and headed back down the road to Itungi. The scenery is wonderful –although today there was a low cloud covering much of it. As we drove along we seemed to rise up into the cloud and then drop down just below it. At one point it started to rain a little, but we were lucky and the rain held off. When it rains really hard on this road driving gets to be a challenge.

When we got to Itungi Pastor Medson Chengula came out to greet us. Last year when we came to see him he was single and his house showed it. This year the house seems different. He got married this last year – and he and his wife are beaming. They are expecting a baby in May.

We think that mama Chengula has made the best chapattis we have had. She is very pleased to hear this. Although the pastor is clearly very happy with his wife and home situation, it was clear that something was bothering him. “I am very embarrassed to tell you about this,” he started. “Last year when you visited we agreed that our leaders were not doing the job so we replaced them and sent the new leaders to your training session. Since that time the new officers have discovered that the previous treasurer, who was also the church treasurer, had stolen the money that had been collected. They had then spent several months trying to get the money back – but they were not able to do so. The officers were too upset and embarrassed to admit this in a phone call-so they did not answer our calls nor call us back. (This is very much a cultural thing – Hehe’s do not like to give bad news.)

Everyone here was very discouraged, wondering if anyone will trust them anymore. We told them we are willing to help them re-start their SACCOS but only if the members really want to. We have lots of places to work, so we do not need more work. Still, there is a real need here and if the members want to and are willing to work we will certainly help them.

We told them that we had 3,200,000 Tsh to help them IF they get things organized this year. This would leave them with 1,800,000 Tsh to raise. They were excited, but wondered if it was possible to raise this much. Later on we contacted their partner in the US, Como Park Lutheran and told them about our visit. Pastor Erickson immediately wrote back, “ We can send $600 USD in matching funds for SACCOS capital.” Asante sana Pastor Erickson. We will tell them tomorrow morning. With this gift they should be able to raise the rest of the capital they will need.

The pastor and his wife were going into Iringa for a meeting so they asked to ride back with us. Brown and the pastor continued their discussion on how to get things organized again. It seems that the best thing is for our interns to spend a day or two in Itungi working with the people to get them organized and working together on this. We think that Itungi will pull together and get their SACCOS up and running. Time will tell.