TransCape Microfinance

Mtegyke

2010-09-06T01:58:00.000-07:00

Joe has done the interviews and the home visits of the new Mtegyke group. He identified 20 people out of 45 applicants which qualify to go on through the process. He is waiting for me now to give him a date for the business course. It will be a weekend in the end of September. In the meantime I ll meet with a well established Support group in Ntibane. Our support group coordinator gave me the green lights for them and we will visit them tomorrow.

New group at the coast

2010-08-23T01:41:00.000-07:00

Hi there,
Joe and me have identified a new group for MF at the coastal side, near Mtegyke. This is not a support group. It is a group of woman fromone area which has been asking us for ages to come and assess them. I always denied becasue we were focusing on Support groups only. But no SG is ready at the moment on the coast side and Joe is mobile now with his bike and can set this group up. He did the initial meeting on the 2oth of August and is going out for interviews tomorrow. Joe also helped a lot with the big evaluation of the Nshilini group. He was busy for two days. He is doing very well and I hope he keeps up the good work.

Vukani Support Group

2010-08-03T08:36:00.000-07:00

On the 31th of July I did the payout for Vukani Support Group. The support group was formed around Nolitha Clinic. I started off with 18 applicants and for the business course 14 turned up. 4 failed the exam but had I gave them a chance to try again. Only one gave it another shot and passed. I only payed out 8 people on the end because 2 have fallen sick and were admitted to the hospital and one quit without giving a reason. Maybe she found the whole thing to stressful. To open your own business is a serious thing and I always stress that point in our courses. All 8 are women and we have got 3 chicken shops, 2 blankets and clothing shops, 2 spaza shop and one hardware shop selling mainly gum poles.
The first pay back and evaluation day is the 21 of September.
The Mqanda group had her first evaluation last week and they are doing well. One of the clients was abit lazy with her book keeping and it took me an hour to calculate her balance. We found out that she is in the minus and we agreed that something is wrong with her way to write down her daily sales. well I hope so!
Joe my assistant is doing all the paydays by himself now. And that is a great relief for me. He also got is motor bike now and can reach even far places.

Nolitha Support Group

2010-07-14T03:48:00.000-07:00

The interviews and home visits were done for the Nolitha support group and this coming weekend I will do the business course with them. They are quite a strong group. I have got 17 applicants and they are all able to read and write. It seems like that this group is not gonna struggle to much with the book keeping and the exam.
It seems like we found a motor bike for my assistant. It will speed up the process a lot, if he has got wheels. We still have 9 support groups to open up before the end of 2011. Puh!

2010-06-14T05:26:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,
unfortunately we had to postpone the home visits in Nolitha last week. Phindani, our Support Group coordinator, had to go to a school awareness day. We set the date on the 22nd of June now. Good news from Joe my manger assistant. He past his driver license first shot and can start doing interviews, home visits and paydays for me now. I hope that will speed up the process of opening more groups because we are behind. Our target is 15 groups in 2 years. Puh!
I m busy looking for a motorbike for him. This weekend I ll by the protective clothing and helmet for him.
All the best, Astrid

Finally back on the blog!

2010-05-24T03:03:00.000-07:00

Finally I m back on blogger. After re-structuring our web page and professionalizing our system (Thanks Hyman) I managed to import my old blogs into the new one.
Many things have happened since February 2010. The Nshilini Microfinance group is doing very well and almost all of them are in the time frame. We had some trouble with the chicken farmers because there was an acute outbreak of chicken pox and ALL the chicken died. I was panicking a little bit because non of the locals knew what kind of disease is killing their chicken. Normally they know the different kind of symptoms and treat them themselves but this time nobody knew the answer. So I took one dead chicken to Mthatha and the Vet in town did a post mortem. He found out that the disease is chicken pox and it is transmitted through mosquitoes. It affects the white and the local brown chicken. We had two options. We either wait until winter comes and the mosquitoes disappear or we can get a vaccine and inject every chicken. Some of the clients decided to wait and the others started a new batch of chicks but vaccinated them.I was very positive surprised about my clients financial managment because all of them had put enough money aside to start all over again. I think that is fantastic!

2010-02-20T10:32:00.001-08:00

To be updated shortly

New Microfinance group

2010-02-16T23:47:00.000-08:00

It is time to start a new Microfinance group. One of the support groups in Ward 22 near Siyakhula is ready to get started. They already handed in their business proposals and I ll meet with them next week Tuesday to discuss the details. Then the selection process can start.
Nshilini's group is doing well and I have called them for the next pay day on the 20th of February 2010.

Evaluation of the Nshilini group

2010-02-03T04:49:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I took two days to evaluate the members of the Nshilini group. All in all they are doing fine, even if they are not keeping their book records. I sad down with every singel one of them and explained again how it works and how they can see if they are making a profit. I also corrected all the record books and brought them up to date. Two out of seventeen are keeping their record correctly. I was worried about one woman who hasn't been coming to the monthly meetings. The last time I saw her was at the business course. I knew that she was living far far away from the road and that it will take at least 45 minutes to walk to her house. So me and Joe my translater set off to her house. it was very hot and the sweat just poured down. After 45 min hike up a very steep hill we arrived and she was not at home. We were very disappointet but I didn want to give up. I saw a woman on the other side of the valley and asked Joe to ask her if she knew were Kholeka was. That woman was about 1 km away from us but Joe's voice reached her ear without problems. Her answer was clear like a bell, that Kholeka was at a party in the next village. The accustics in the hills are amazing...who needs cell phones? I wasn't really keen to carry on walking because I didn't bring water and it sounded like the next village is over another 2 hills. But Joe wouldn't give up and he convinced me to carry on. After another 45 min hike we found the party and Kholeka and took her back to her house so I could take some pictures of her shop. She reported that she was very sick. She is on Anti-retrovirals now, and she is doing better. Her shop was making a lot of money in the beginning but went down hill when she got sick. I hope she will be able to recover. After three hours we were back at the car.

Evaluation day in December for Nshilini

2010-01-12T23:48:00.000-08:00

On the 20th of December I had the last evaluation day for the Nshilini group of the year 2009. Everybody was short of money because Christmas was close. The businesses seem to run very well. In January is the big evaluation due were I ll go and visit everybody at their homes again. The book keeping is a big headache. 1 out of 17 is doing it right. I think some are not bothered to keep records but some haven't understood the concept. So I'm going to review the book keeping system again to make it simpler and I ll need more time teaching as well. Maybe I have to extent the business course to 3days.

First evaluation of Ntshilini group

2009-11-19T10:29:00.000-08:00

Two days ago I visited the new established Microfinance group in Ntshilini. Except one woman, all came with their record books and first installment money. The group is doing very well. Their is one guy how does Fotographs with his new digital camera and sells them to his customers. I was amazed that the pictures were so good as he has never operated a camera before. He delivers the pictures by feet so he safes taxi money. On my way to Mdumbi I saw him delivering about 10km from his home. That's comitment!

Ntshilini Microfinance group

2009-11-16T11:23:00.000-08:00

The Nshilini Microfinance group was established with 17 people on the 4th of October 2009. The first evaluation and installment is due on the 17th of November 2009.