SILC

  The highlight of my time in Karatu was our second to last day in the field, when we had our first chance to meet a SILC group.
  Of course, we couldn't actually talk to any of them because none of them speak English, but the Synovate supervisor translated for us. There were two groups we met from that village, one with about 12 members and the other with about 25. The fist group had completed three cycles, and the second group was about to finish its first (a cycle consists of about 9 to 12 months of saving, borrowing, and repaying loans, followed by a "share out" celebration in which the money is disbursed according to each member's saving level). Both groups said that SILC encouraged them to earn and save money, plan ahead in their expenditures, and provided them with money in emergencies. Two other things they mentioned were that it allowed them to pay lumpsum school fees and provided women the opportunity to invest or buy things without having to depend on their husband for money.

The first SILC group

All these things are interesting to note, and I think they are all beneficial aspects of the SILC program. Like I mentioned in the previous post, both the lack of social safety nets and the inability to prepare in advance for hard times help lead to the hardships villagers face. As a result, I believe it is a good thing if SILC provides a safety net for emergencies and encourages people to save money and plan expenditures in advance (of course, these effects have to be studied carefully, and it's not a good idea to just assume they are beneficial even if it seems obvious. For example, "encouraging saving" could be a bad thing if people feel pressure to save money when they really need to use it now. But I digress). In this post, I'd like to focus on the last two aspects of the SILC program that the groups mentioned, because I think their importance is a little less obvious.

A member of the second group making a deposit

   Education is organized much differently in Tanzania than it is in the U.S. In Tanzania, students must pass an exam after their seventh year of school in order to continue on to secondary school. They then take exams after four and six years of secondary school, continuing their education only if they pass each exam. According to the enumerators, about half of urban students will make it to secondary school, and only between 10 and 15% will make it on to university. In the villages this rate is much lower - about 10% will make it to secondary school, and virtually none will complete it.
   There are several obstacles that prevent most villagers from obtaining a full education. As I alluded to in the previous post, children are expected to play a large role in farm and house work from an extremely young age. Thus many have little if any time to spend on homework or studying once they get home from school, and may even be kept out of school to help at home. In addition, parents are required to pay school fees in advance of each school term (even primary education is not free here). Since villagers face many obstacles to saving in advance, they often struggle to pay these fees upfront. SILC loans allow parents to pay school fees over a longer period of time in smaller amounts, which helps remove a major obstacle to keeping kids in school. Without SILC, obtaining a loan for school fees at a reasonable rate is impossible for many villagers (SILC loans are usually repaid over 3 months with 5 to 10% interest). It may not seem immediately obvious (except perhaps for those paying college tuition), but the access to reasonable credit terms that SILC provides may do a lot to increase the educational opportunities of villagers.
   The second effect of SILC, which is the financial independence and empowerment it gives to women, is something that I did not grasp the importance of unti coming here (SILC accepts both men and women, but as you can see in the picture below, the majority of actual members are women). Many (I could probably say most) of the women in the villages truly are treated as second-class citizens. The enumerators tell me that women do most of the farmwork, carry most of the water, do virtually all the cooking, cleaning, and childbearing, and (this I was especially surprised by) usually build the houses. Giving women the ability to save the money they earn for themselves is a positive aspect of SILC, if for no other reason than that it gives women at least a little bit of freedom. Not only does SILC allow women to keep the money they earn, it may also give them a greater say in household expenditures.
   Such freedom might not seem quite so important in the U.S., where women decide who they marry and usually make financial decisions with their husband. But here men decide what to do with whatever money comes in to the household. From what we've seen and heard, this sadly seems to usually be to buy alcohol, even when food and other necessities are scarce.
   Although I would like to think that a household would, in general, receive the same benefit whether the husband or wife controlled finances, the reality seems to be that women and men in the village have different priorities. In most cases, women seem more intent on providing necessities for the household, which makes it especially important for village women to gain more control over their earnings. Like I said, I think giving women greater control over their income is a good thing regardless of whether the husband is wasteful or not. But based on what we've seen, it seems like for most village families there are also many benefits to the household beyond women's empowerment, such as a shifting of priorities toward providing food, shelter, etc.
So those are my reflections on the brief, translated comments we received from the SILC groups (sorry mine were not so brief). I have to say, it was nice to just listen to what SILC members thought about the program without prompting them with the questions on the survey. Here are pictures of Katie and I with the two groups. Next stop the Rift Valley of Western Kenya!