Whatever happened to......

During my time at Madwaleni there seemed to be a constant stream of new initiatives to be set up and followed- many of which I covered in this blog. Now it is time to move on I would like to report on some of the successes and failures.

Microfinance group was my favourite initiative and thankfully kept going throughout the 3 years. In numerical terms the bank's capital is around R12000 (made up of kind donations), we have lent approximately R24000 and have around R11000 currently loaned out, ie total repayments of around R23000 over 3 years.

But microfinance became much less about numbers as time went on. The initial aim was to make lives happier by empowering a world of self determined income generation, but on many occasions I offered to shut down the scheme on the grounds that it just didn't seem to be making people happier. Nor did the figures suggest that huge amounts of money were being made. Despite all my best efforts there was a repeating cycle of borrowing money, making money, spending ALL the money and then paying back the loan from their very low stipends earned by working as 'volunteers' at the hospital. Despite this I never had any positive responses to my idea of shutting the whole thing down.

There may be several reasons for this. One is the meat and chocolate I sometimes provided at meetings, another is the thought that as long as people kept paying back they would be eligible for further loans (this is the experience of the Grameen bank). However, I wonder how much people just enjoyed being part of a club. Our monthly meetings were always jovial with a hat being passed around to collect money and people would routinely attended even if they had no money to repay. I probably should have just asked them but I think the team atmosphere was a draw.

So what happens next? I offered to find another outsider to take over running the group but instead they have opted to run it themselves from now on. My great friend Nomanono Maphosela has taken the lead. We have converted the Excel spreadsheet from my laptop to a paperbased system and they are on their own. I very much look forward to attending another 'meeting with meat' (the name for quarterly meetings where I supply the meat!) and seeing how they are getting on. I wouldn't be surprised if things have gone from strength to strength sine the meddling mlungu left town.