Hopewell rolling into other parts of Richmond and Table Mountain

Hopewell is the first community that SaveAct (SA) worked in as a pilot site for its programme. SA has worked there for two years now. It's provided many valuable experiences; a number of groups have been established and continue to operate their Savings and Credit activities according to the SA model.

With the exception of some teenagers who were expecting to be given soft credit, all those who decided to participate have continued to operate their savings and credit groups. This has continued to generate benefits for the group members, including a safe and secure home for their savings, avenue for investing their savings so that it can grow, and access to credit. The groups also provide access to emergency social funds e.g. for burials, for medical expenses, household emergencies that are approved by the group. Enterprises have already grown out of this, such a catering business, a chicken broiler business and retail outlets.

The groups have also acted as a form of social support to its members in times of need and fulfil a variety of important support roles to its member households.

A partnership has been developed with the Project Preparation Trust to implement a pro-poor local economic develop programme which will run over the next two years. It will specifically be aimed at poor and vulnerable groups in the selected areas of:
o Richmond: Nhlazuka, Endaleni complex, Hopewell
o Mkhambathini: Table Mountain

Aspects of the work will include:
o The facilitation of stakeholder driven Participatory Local Economic Plans
o Promotion of Savings and Credit Groups (SCGs), (including access to lump sums of savings or loans, and access interest free Social Funds), with Life Skills Training and Enterprise Training for these SCGs (forming a coherent set)
o Micro-enterprise Training and Development with Business Development Support (BDS)
o Homestead Garden Development (HGD).

They are summarised, showing their links and complementarity, as follows:



Most of the selected areas were severely affected by apartheid violence, and struggles for political control. A government initiated reconstruction project is being formulated for the Richmond area. It will be interesting to monitor and engage with this process as it unfolds. Will it assist in stablising the area, and reach some of those most affected? Or will it bring renewed tensions around the allocation and control of these resources? Can the interventions of SaveAct's partnership, with anticipated proliferation of organised groups focusing on livelihood development, assist in some way to bring constructive form to a reconstruction process?

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Obonjaneni incorporating the FAIR Local Innovation Support Fund Pilot

"sustainable agriculture [and development] is not a model or package to be introduced, but "more a process for learning", and one that "depends on and builds up social and human forms of capital" (Pretty, in Uphoff 2002: 54 from Friis-Hansen & Egelyng, 2007)

SaveAct is a partner in the piloting of a Local LISF in the amaZizi area in the Northern Drakensberg. This project is one of five pilots being implemented in South Africa, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Nepal and Uganda. Other partners include the Farmer Support Group (FSG) and the Department of Agriculture

FAIR is a project of Prolinnova, an international network concerned with promoting local innovation amongst farmers and natural resource users. The pilot concept being tested is to put resources for research and experimentation into the hands of farmers so that they can set the research agenda and drive research activities with support from outside institutions. This is a radical departure from the norm - where researchers usually decide for themselves what is important, decide on the research design, and undertake research, with an expectation that this will have an impact on natural resource users and farmers.

SaveAct has been advocating within the project an approach that mobilises farmers into savings and credit based activity, as this could lead to the development of more sustainable local institutions and more capacity to engage in experimentation and innovation.

There has been progress towards establishing a local voluntary association that will assume responsibility for managing the LISF. Criteria for selection of applicants have been developed and several applications have been screened and some awards made.

Partners are engaged in:

• Supporting local institutional development across a range of groupings (crafters, farmers, women engaged in saving, lending and enterprise development, multi-interest forums and so on)
• Providing training of these groups in the formulation and development of their activities
• Assisting with Participatory Learning and Action (PLA) by groups
• Facilitating networking between groups within and beyond the amaZizi area
• Supporting Participatory Innovation Development (PID) and other farmer/Natural Resource User (NRU) led joint experimentation processes.

In FAIR SaveAct is concerned with mobilisation of poor and vulnerable groups (especially women) into activities that can offer opportunities for them to develop strategies to cope with their adversity and coordinate collective actions sometimes based on savings to enable them to 'climb out of poverty'. The mobilisation of savings and the resultant access to credit (financial services) can be complimentary to the focus of FSG on National Resource Management (NRM). It expands the possibilities for people to act from a position of strength to plan and develop activities that derive benefits from the land either in a subsistence or enterprise-based mode. SaveAct is also concerned with enabling access to life skills training (especially with respect to coping strategies around HIV/AIDS and financial and economic literacy). Learning in these areas will further equip participants to develop livelihoods strategies that may generate demand for FSG services and LISF funds. Added to this is SaveAct's commitment to providing training in enterprise design and development aimed at entry level entrepreneurs. To this there will be periodic follow up and advice for people trained in this area.

For more information on this project and the concepts go to
www.prolinnova.net

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Eastern Cape Local Economic Action Partnership

"Approximately half of the provincial population was estimated to be illiterate in 1999. In that same year, approximately 55% of the population of the Province were unemployed. Access to basic and social services remained limited, in spite of significant investments in service provision in the Province. All of these indicators showed a worsening of poverty from the west of the Province to the east and were far higher in the former Bantustan areas. Poverty in the OR Tambo and Alfred Nzo District Municipalities, where two-thirds of the Province's population live, is particularly acute." (PGDP, 2003)

Through interaction with SCAT in Cape Town (who are funding advice support centres in the Eastern Cape) and Vesper Society based in California (which has an interest in social and economic justice in the Eastern Cape, and funding HIV and AIDS support programmes including roll out of ARV's) there was general agreement that SA strategy was relevant to the local context. Following this consultations were held with their local partners in Matatiele region and general support was given to formulate a joint programme. Funding has been sought and the Vesper Society has agreed to cover 30% and the EU Thina Sinako LED Programme is presently processing this application for funds.

The project will run for two years but it is hoped to secure funding for a much longer period as poverty and the impact of HIV and AIDS is very severe in that region. There is a desperate need to respond to this. SaveAct has worked towards assembling a partnership with organisations sharing a concern with economic justice, empowerment of women and 'making poverty history'.

The following organisations have signed a partnership agreement to work together and plan to work as follows:

Although the Ford Foundation is not a direct partner in this initiative, SaveAct is indebted to their support, as without it, it would not have been possible to work at making this partnership a possibility.

It is hoped that the results of this partnership will have a long-term impact in the region and that local NGOs will institutionalise many of the activities and perhaps the overall strategy into their normal operation. It is a bold partnership that seeks to work with organisations already deeply involved in fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the area. The project seeks to bring new possibilities for people living with HIV and AIDS to strengthen their coping strategies and engage in a process where they could develop more sustainable livelihoods.

Planned outputs for this initiative are as follows:

Quantitative: 1 700 members saving in 170 SCGs; issuing loans, operating Social Funds; 1 400 members receive LST; 160 provided with enterprise training; 160 enterprise plans prepared and implemented, 238 livelihoods created; 238 enhanced.

Qualitative: social capital built, empowerment of women, improved coping strategies responding to HIV/AIDS and growing confidence to take initiative.

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Partnering with Thandanani

SaveAct is working with Thandanani Children's Foundation, a Pietermaritzburg based NGO focused on support for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).

Their volunteers have been trained in savings and credit methodology and are using this to strengthen their coping capacity. This in turn enables them to render a better service as volunteers. Since this activity was introduced their attendance in training and planning activities in Thandanani have picked up. It appears to be enhancing their volunteer programme.

After initial success in training volunteers, with the support from Thandanani, this model has since been introduced to care-givers and has been enthusiastically embraced.

In introducing this model to volunteers, flexibility has been needed as they only meet every three months. Normally SCG groups meet monthly to save, but in this case the model has been adapted to enable savings to happen every three months.

Thandanani is very excited about the results so far and is exploring the possibility of integrating the model into their day to day operations.

Captions for Images
Top - Zamani Savings Group Secretary, Treasurer and counter of funds during their 'share out' meeting n Hopewell
Middle - SCGs in Hopewell being trained in group operations: A role-play of savings meeting procedures
Bottom - Presentation of training certificate to a Hopewell SCG member by Anton Krone of SaveAct

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