A widow (70), resident of Igula Village in Iringa Rural District, Iringa Region, and is one of beneficiaries of Mama Bahati Foundation (MBF) micro-finance loans, stands in front of her house with her two orphans yesterday. The mother of orphans died some time back but their father is bedridden. On the extreme right, is the MBF Social Performance and Training Manager, John Chasency. (Photo: COURTESY OF MBF)
The Mama Bahati Foundation (MBF) in collaboration with the Five Talents UK, has disbursed microfinance loans worth five billion shillings (5bn/-) to more than ten thousand women both in rural and urban of Iringa Region since the start of the foundation in 2007.
The MBF Social Performance and Training Manager, John Chasency told the Guardian yesterday that the project is a Christian microfinance institution (credit led), which is aimed at empowering women in rural areas because they are dynamic and entrepreneurial in real life.
He said, Mama Bahati Foundation (MBF) was registered as an NGO in February 2006, but it started providing microfinance services to women in and around Iringa in 2007.
“Women in rural villages face a lot challenges in acquiring capital in terms of cash money, this is why the project has decided to work with women in the villages because they more faithful in terms repaying loans than those in town,” he said.
He said they training clients in entrepreneurship and business before giving them loans and they are also follow up clients after they have been given loans through progress out of poverty index.
“Unlike other microfinance institution, we working closing with our clients to see that lives improves and they are able to stand on their own. In short, we don’t just disburse loans but we also monitor our clients through and through until they are transformed,” he said.
He said, women are cluster in groups of five to sixty women as their surety to obtain loans and the entire group has a leader to control others in the group.
The project was the idea of the retired Archbishop of Tanzania, Donald Mtetemela and was named after Mama Bahati, a woman who runs a small banana selling business.
It took a loan of just $8 (10,000/-) to break the unproductive credit cycle she was in with her former market seller and allow her to buy enough stock to make a profit large enough to repay the loan and grow over time.
“The clients of MBF are solely women and the plan is to continue outreach to women in new communities as well as expand their target client base to include youth,” he explained.
He pointed out that women have historically proved to be more successful in repaying loans and prioritizing the needs of the family.
However, the program encourages women to start small enterprises as a means of gaining an income, independence and dignity both in the home and within the community.
About 88 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day (World Bank, 2007); 85 percent of the female population is economically active in some form.
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