Bangladesh and Savings

This is a guest post from our good friend Lindsey Nobles who is currently in Bangladesh with a group of bloggers. You can follow along at fhbloggers.org.

Lindsey is a Texas transplant living in Nashville, Tennessee, with a sincere love for her precious dog Molly. She's working furiously for Food for the Hungry to mobilize others to go to the hard places and bring hope and help to the children. She has a widening heart for orphan care and has been doing what she can to mobilize friends and followers to see children in the same light that she does. She's been a blogger for Compassion International and visited some of their projects in Guatemala City. It changed her life.

One of the things that I've been so impressed by during our time in Bangladesh is our savings group model. It is obvious that these savings groups are the bedrock of our work in Bangladesh. They allow us to impact a community wholistically. Not only do the groups allow women to save for a future together, also they give the women the rare opportunity to learn to read and write, develop small businesses, raise healthy families, strengthen their communities, learn leadership skills, discover their rights, and prevent childhood marriages. 

Currently FH has over 900 groups across 7 areas of Bangladesh. We have chosen to run learning and savings groups in these areas as they are particularly needy and vulnerable places, where women can be deprived or mistreated. In many of these places FH originally carried out emergency relief work in response to natural disasters. Eventually our groups help disaster torn communities to develop and recover in a sustainable way.

Savings groups are weekly gatherings of 15 or so women and teaches them a curriculum that includes values, literacy, numeracy, law, health, and savings lessons. Each week the women collect 10 or 15 taka {whatever amount they designate as a group}. And while initially the group invests in items or projects to build capital, as their money grows they can invest in things like livestock or sewing equipment or house improvements. The more the groups can save, the more the women can invest in their children's futures. 

Over the 10 years that FH works in a community, savings groups connect and form village groups; and village groups connect and form the community based organization that address community problems and needs and begin to self-finance community development initiatives. Eventually allowing the community to become completely self-sustaining.

Above is a savings group that has been meeting together for just 15 months, the "Rose" group.  Collectively they have saved 12,660 taka or $159 US dollars {keep in mind that 50% of the population here lives on less than $1.25 a day}, and intend to buy a piece of land together to farm.  One woman has learned to sew, and can now raise the income level of her family from this newly acquired skill.  The women have learned to read and write.  One woman said, "I used to have to sign my name by leaving my thumbprint, but now I can write my name." 

They were so proud, and they truly believed that working together they could change the face of their community. I believe they can too.

**Photos by Esther Havens**