Blog
Plan staff blog on our work with children across the world.
Burkina's crisis needs the media spotlight
Over 18 million people are affected by the food crisis in the Sahel, a dry sub-Saharan belt running roughly from Chad over to Senegal. Think about it. That’s more people than the entire population of the Netherlands who are going hungry, right now.
There are currently 61,000 refugees in Burkina; added to thousands in villages along the Malian border who have a 90% deficit in cereals from harvest.
The thing is that in Burkina Faso and Niger the crisis is a double one – communities are already hungry, but the burden is greater as thousands of refugees cross from Mali.
In one month the rainy season will arrive; when that happens, all access is cut off to these communities. The pressure to get some kind of assistance in place is very much on.
Fleeing to survive
If you were to fly over Burkina Faso in a plane you would spot, perhaps, the jigsaw of tents. You'd miss the make-shift toilets built by Plan whose staff stay up nights to try to help; you’d miss the children playing in the dust.
In April, some of these boys and girls from villages in northern Mali watched as their fathers had their throats cut. Then they fled for their lives. Amadou, 10, now in Mentao camp near Djibo, says: “I would like to return to my village, to see my friends again, but at the moment I have no idea where most of them are. I don't know where my family are either.”
Aisha, from Timbuktu, also in Mentao, says simply: “I saw my husband get shot. And seeing my husband with the blood flowing out of him, I wanted to die too.”
Anyone interested?
Why does it matter, and why does it matter to you? Quite simply, because it keeps on happening; and by necessity, the more we know about it, the less acceptable it will become. Is it, as the foreign editor of The Telegraph recently told me, that “no-one is interested in West Africa, Jane...”? I don’t believe so.
I believe we should be reporting this crisis and making people interested: the public, policy makers, other kids. We should be getting people to act. Then and only then will we make the way for change.
Africa's agriculture potential
It matters because last year, exactly the same thing happened in the Horn of Africa. The question is, why, on a continent where more than half the entire population is engaged in agriculture, does this happen again and again and again?
US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Johnnie Carson believes it shouldn’t. He said last week, on the eve of the G8 summit: “Africa has enormous promise and potential in the agriculture field, and there is absolutely no reason why Africa should be food deficit...”
Carson believes that President Barack Obama’s new initiative, Feed the Future*, will help create a green agricultural revolution in Africa to end food insufficiency. President Obama pushed the multi-billion dollar initiative at the G8, giving us a vision of how we can lift millions out of poverty.
Taking action now
It is a grand plan and one which, like many, presents an appealing vision. Phew, we think, it will all be alright then... In the meantime, in the field, as we in the NGO world like to call it, there are people from Plan mobilising resources to fight the crisis. They are drilling boreholes by hand in 3 refugee camps.
I’ve long thought that the editors of our international media need to start noticing Africa. If we, and the editors who, whether we like it or not, dictate what we’re interested in, are interested, we give Africa a voice, and it is that which will, in the end, mean that 18 million people go home with some food in their bellies.
Donate to the West Africa food crisis appeal
Find out more about Plan's work in Burkina Faso
*Plan is not responsible for the content on external websites
G8 leaders must make fighting malnutrition a priority
18 May 2012: As the G8 leaders sit down at Camp David this week, it is to be hoped that the attention of the world’s media won’t be on what they will be eating or what their partners are wearing, as has happened at previous summits.
If, as is expected, a new food security and nutrition initiative is to be announced, then this is the real story, at least for millions of people across the Sahel region currently at risk of chronic malnutrition.
In Niger last year 300,000 children were treated for severe malnutrition – an astonishing 15% of all children treated for malnutrition worldwide. And that was before the onset of the so-called “hungry season”, which this year has come early due to a complex set of factors afflicting the region that I’ve written about here before.
One million children in danger
UNICEF estimates that across the Sahel, one million children under the age of 5 could need life-saving aid. As I write the figure out in words, I can hardly believe that we are once again facing the spectre of such a catastrophe. That’s a whole generation of children who, if they survive, will more than likely have their physical and mental development irreparably compromised for lack of enough to eat.
This is the Great Silent Tsunami that keeps happening year after year with some years, like this one, worse than others. But who’s listening? Did you know that a severely malnourished child does not cry but instead dies in silence?
Malnutrition impact
The consequences of chronic malnutrition for young children are almost too many to list: an increased likelihood of early death; reduced immunity to life-threatening diseases like diarrhoea; a more susceptible disposition to kidney damage, diabetes and heart disease; stunting; impaired cognitive skills; poor physical coordination; in girls a higher tendency to give birth to small babies when they’re of child-bearing age.
Nutrition is one of the cornerstones of enabling children in countries like Niger to try and break the poverty gridlock that they find themselves born into. But imagine trying to concentrate in class when all you had to eat last night was a nutrient poor “meal” of bitter leaves.
In a report published last week by Save The Children, Niger emerged as the worst place in the world to be a mother. Then there’s the stark fact that nearly one third of Niger's children are malnourished and one in 7 dies before the age of 5. None of which makes for easy bedtime reading.
Plan steps up response
With no fairytale ending in sight and food prices still on the rise, Plan Niger has been stepping up its work to support food distribution, school feeding programmes, the restocking of cereal banks, small scale gardening projects and nutrition counselling. Other international agencies have also been redoubling their efforts and there is greater coordination than at any time previously.
But it will not be enough. We know that for sure. G8 leaders must make fighting malnutrition a priority. Failure to act now will have devastating consequences for a whole generation of children in Niger and across West Africa.
Donate to Plan’s West Africa food crisis appeal
Find out more about Plan’s work in Niger
Reaching nomad refugees in West Africa's food crisis
In Mangaize, Niger, some 3,000 refugees have settled close to this bustling market town. The refugees are a mix of Touareg nomadic herders and town dwellers fleeing Timbuktu south across the border.
Another 7,000 people now inhabit a no-man’s land near the border with Mali, near Ayourou. The landscape here could be mistaken for the moon, except I understand the moon is cold. Here, the temperatures on this rocky plateau reach 45°C around 3 o’clock every afternoon.
Nomad camp fears
Haroun, an old man and obviously the respected elder, explained: ”We are nomads. To be in a camp would be like a prison. We are still close to the border; we don’t feel safe here (in Ayourou). If we all move close together and are attacked, we will all die. If we spread out, at least some will have a chance to flee.”
Near the town of Djibo in Soum province, Burkina Faso, there are about 10,000 refugees between 4 camp sites. Further to the north, after getting lost a few times in the desert, we managed to find a smaller camp or settlement of 2,000 refugees in Damba.
We are chased and have to run
A refugee family from Mali find shelter in Niger but food is scarce
Oumar, a refugee in Djibo for 2 months, was very frank about the situation of his people:
”We are nomads. We are tired. This happens too much. We are chased and we have to run. It is not just this year. If we go back we will be chased again eventually. Our numbers are shrinking. If we go back soon we will be no more.”
The story in each place is remarkably similar, but small, important differences exist.
The refugees assembled in Mangaize, Niger and Mantau, Burkina Faso, have settled into well-ordered camps. In Ayourou, Niger and Damba, Burkina Faso, the refugees arrived seeking shelter with large herds of animals – goats, camels, cattle – and have settled far from the organised camps and communities in what is possibly some of the most inhospitable topography in all of Africa. Why?
Strife and struggle
The answer concerns not only individuals seeking shelter, but also different tribal groups maintaining a way of life and surviving. While all nomadic, each tribe has different customs and behaviours they want to preserve. This strife and struggle for survival adds yet another layer to this complex crisis and one that could sprout violence between refugee groups.
Sidi, a herdsman arriving in Niger explains: “We have a lot of animals. They need water and food. They are our bank, we fear moving any further without them. We also fear the people there will fight us because they are afraid we will damage their crops with our animals.”
Reaching all refugees
Back in Ayourou, Haroun is adamant. His group is not for moving. They appreciate any help from non-governmental organisations like Plan, but they would not move into a camp to get it.
In both places, water and animal fodder were already difficult to find. Water and food, for any living thing, are in short supply.
Plan is working with our partners to provide assistance to all refugees. In addition to supplemental food distributions, Plan will install latrines and wells, ensure children are safe from exploitation and have access to basic preventative health and education.
Donate to Plan’s West Africa food crisis appeal
Find out more about Plan’s work in Africa
Will the world answer West Africa's call for help?
West Africa is not a place that many people in Ireland are too familiar with. People have heard of places like Liberia and Sierra Leone, primarily for negative reasons such as war and child soldiers. But how many know where Niamey is? Are there many who can pronounce Ouagadougou?
The world will soon find out. Niger and much of the Western Sahel basin, stretching from Senegal to Chad is approaching a food and nutrition crisis. Around 13 million people are already affected by food insecurity and more than 1 million children under 5 years are expected to suffer from moderate acute malnutrition.
Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and the Gambia have declared a crisis and called for international assistance.
Mali refugees
Mali refugees registering for Plan food aid in Niger
In Tillabéri, Niger, I talked to one village leader who simply said there is little they can do. The rains were poor last year and very little grew. The people in the village don’t have money, or animals to sell since they sold most in 2010 to get by the last time the rains failed.
That is bad enough, but now an armed conflict in Mali has provoked the displacement of over 220,000 people from their homes.
About 95,000 of these remain in the north of Mali, currently unable to receive any assistance because of the conflict, while about 130,000 have fled to Burkina Faso, Mauritania, and Niger - countries already in crisis.
Waiting for the shock factor
The worst of all this is that those fleeing the fighting have sought refuge in places that are likely to suffer the worst effects of the food crisis. Fighting and refugees often generate media attention, but there is not yet the shock factor of emaciated babies to illustrate the looming food crises.
To date, less than 35% of the funds needed to manage, or possibly avert, a full-scale crisis have been provided.
About 150km from Niamey, around Ayourou - very close to the Malian border, Plan in Niger has been trying to provide basic assistance to over 10,000 Malian refugees. The complexity of international law means that because they are only 5km from their own border, they are not actually classified as refugees.
Million children face malnourishment
This means that under the eyes of international law, the Niger government could legitimately turn a blind eye, but they choose not to.
The local government in Tillabéri has been working hard to do what it can for the refugees, whilst also addressing the looming food crisis for its own people. The local Prefect has ensured that the refugees have land to stay on and has supported organisations such as Plan to provide food, healthcare, water and shelter.
Morally, given that 5 million of Nigerien citizens are struggling to meet their basic food needs, and 1 million Nigerien children could be malnourished in a few short months, the government could hardly be criticised for saying it has enough to do. But it hasn’t.
The rest of the world has to make that choice too.
Make a donation to Plan’s West Africa food crisis appeal
Find out more about Plan’s work in Niger
Don't subject your girls to the knife
For many years, I practiced female genital mutilation on girls. Sometimes, I would travel far from my village to perform ceremonies on girls, as far away as Senegal or Mauritania. FGM can mean the partial or total removal of all external genitalia as part of the process towards womanhood.
Being subjected to the knife is viewed as proper; a good tradition and a rite of passage and acceptance by many communities. I am Muslim, and for many years this practice was forced upon Muslim women.
But now many see it as part of their tradition and culture; they accept it, proudly subjecting their young daughters to the knife.
Knife ceremonies
When I was a girl, the knife ceremonies were always looked forward to in my village. There would be great festivities when a girl was to enter womanhood that would culminate by a girl having her genitals cut so she could be clean and ready for motherhood.
A woman who had not undergone the knife was not clean to prepare the food for her husband. She would not be accepted by her community, or that of her future husband. I remember my own ceremony like it was yesterday. I was so proud for myself, and my family, to know that I was carrying out tradition.
Being accepted
The evening begins with people dancing and singing until early in the morning. Then breakfast is prepared, rice with yogurt. For the girls about to undergo the ceremony, they eat 2 spoonfuls and then take a third which they would throw onto the roof of the house. This is called the Nhirri Chonli or “birth food”.
Men and women across West Africa practice some form of genital mutilation - the old perform it on the young. It is the way of being accepted into the community.
Death risk
For most of my life, I believed in this practice. Then, last year, I left the knife. I met a woman in Bafata, Adamaia, who worked with Plan. She shared with me the health risks of FGM and how it can harm women and girls - even kill them.
She helped me understand that to be a woman, one didn’t have to change your anatomy to earn respect, be a mother and take care of your family.
Speaking out
I wish I knew all that I know now, earlier. This would have changed the lives of so many girls. I wouldn’t have put them at such a risk. I feel lucky because I haven’t suffered as some women do from FGM with infertility, infections, pain and discomfort in relations with their husbands and in child birth. I see now how this is not a ‘good tradition’ but one that hurts women and can even cause death.
Now, I no longer wield the knife. Instead, I help others understand why they should stop the practice of FGM. I can speak as someone who has experienced the knife in 2 ways - receiving it and applying it to young girls.
I tell them: FGM doesn’t help you, your village or your family. Don’t subject your little girls to the knife.
Find out more about Plan’s work in Guinea-Bissau
Hunger crisis grows in Niger
5 April 2012: As the tears tumble down teenage mother Hadija’s cheeks, I remember vividly how I felt as a first-time mother with a crying baby – inadequate, helpless, with an overwhelming feeling of responsibility.
But 18-month-old Ibrahim isn’t even crying, he’s bleating. No tears fall. He doesn’t have the energy. He is a bundle of skin and bones in his mother’s arms. His eyes barely open.
Severely malnourished, Ibrahim is now in the Intensive Therapeutic Feeding Centre, Tillabéri, Niger, and should recover. Hadija is humiliated, blaming herself for taking her baby to the brink of death by not feeding him adequately.
Brutal scenario
She’s unaware that there are hundreds of thousands of mothers like her in Niger – last year 300,000 children were treated for severe malnutrition here – a shocking15% of all children treated for malnutrition worldwide.
Every year Niger has a “hungry season” beginning in June. An over-reliance on 3 months of rainfall to grow one crop - millet - has been compounded by years of drought and pest infestations.
But this year all the signs are pointing towards a more brutal scenario as people are already finding it hard to feed themselves.
The Nigerien government warns that soon more than a third of the population – 6 million people – will only have enough food to last 6 weeks.
Time to act
Halima holds up some cattle feed - it's all her family have left to eat
I am here in Niger making a film for Plan – like many other agencies Plan is asking governments to act now, rather than wait for famine to spur them into action.
Hassane Mahamadou, Plan’s head of Tillabéri office, explains to me that last year’s drought was just “one too many failed harvests” for Nigeriens to bear – they have no reserves to fall back on.
“This year we’re coming out of several crises, so people have accumulated debts,” he says. “Since 2005 people have kept on borrowing in order to pay back their debts so people’s purchasing power has fallen.”
In desperation, villagers are heading abroad in search of work. In Ibrahim’s village, 300 out of 1,000 people have left with promises of sending money to those left behind.
Surviving on animal feed
Halima Younoussa’s husband joined the exodus to Nigeria but has yet to send money home. So she is left trying to feed her 4 children, all under 5. She pounds millet for other families - when she sieves the powder, she is left with the residue as her payment. Normally reserved for animals, Halima and her children are living off this twice a day.
But they don’t care – the children are so hungry, as soon as she takes the bowl away from the fire they stretch out their cupped hands as if begging for the food.
“I’m scared we won’t be able to find other food and we’ll just eat millet residue and one of my children will die,” she said.
Room for optimism
I feel guilty that I can leave, while they are stuck in the hell of heat and hunger. On the road back to Tillabéri, I stop to interview Plan’s Mahamadou and ask him if he has any reason for optimism. Smiling, he explains that the longer-term work of Plan is beginning to bear fruit.
Plan has set up small gardens, encouraging villagers to diversify their crops and use irrigation for watering rather than rely on rainfall. The results have been encouraging.
In Dessa school garden, the children planted potatoes and have just harvested enough to feed the entire school twice and send the 200 pupils home with 1.5kg each. They sold the rest and earned about £180.
“When the rest of the village saw what the children had done, they were really motivated - if children can do this much, can you imagine what adults could do?!” said headmaster Diallo Soumana.
His enthusiasm is infectious, and I leave feeling that Mahamadou was right - there is room for optimism in Niger.
Watch Mary's film and support the West Africa food crisis appeal
Note some names have been changed
International Women's Day: A former sponsor child's reflections
When I was 6 years old, my parents opened the door to a future I could never have imagined when they signed me up to be a sponsored child with Plan.
For 12 years, through my schooling, I was sponsored by a person in the Netherlands. The sponsorship not only allowed me greater opportunity through access to education and more, but also helped my village. Many children benefited from the improvements to the school and programmes made by Plan.
One of my own children is sponsored by Plan, and the others attend a school which receives support from Plan because of sponsorship.
Leading the way
Khady (left) with her brother and sister in 1986, when she was a sponsored child
Today, I hold a bachelor’s degree and have attended several technical trainings to collect my certificate in data management. In addition to caring for my family, I work as an assistant to the manager of a savings and credit association.
I am also the president of our community health group, which means I convene and coordinate the monthly meetings, reinforce our local health services and facilitate training. Community health groups are supported in their work to ensure that people are accessing health services and learning how to better care for their children and families by Plan.
Women are important
Holding this position gives me a sense of pride. It is well-respected in my community and was previously held by a man.
When I was young, I learned that women are important. We have an obligation to make a positive impact in our communities, which improves the future for our children. That my own children are seeing me in this leadership role emphasizes this value I want them to share with me.
Education key
Based on my own experience, I believe that the biggest gift a woman can give her children, especially her daughters, is an education. Girls need to focus on their studies and live their lives with dignity. By living with dignity, we will be treated with respect.
We mothers and women lead by example, being active participants in daily life, able to make changes and impact the future. I was inspired by the people I met in Plan, my parents, my teachers, to become a leader.
With their support, I was able to achieve my goals. It is my intention to do the same for my own children and the many other children in my village.
Join Plan’s Because I am a Girl campaign to promote girls’ rights and fight gender inequality
Find out more about Plan’s work in Senegal
Chronic malnutrition on horizon for Niger
6 March 2012: When I wrote back in January that we need to talk about the risk of famine in Niger, I had no idea then that an already very complex situation was about to see yet another twist in the tale develop.
Since then, thousands have left Mali for neighbouring Niger to escape the conflict between the Tuareg liberation movement MNLA local militia and government forces, leading to a growing humanitarian crisis - particularly in the north-western region of Tillabéri where food security is extremely precarious.
Redouble aid efforts
In the hot and dusty village of Gaoudel in Ayorou district, an influx of largely Tuareg refugees means that the community’s scant resources now have to stretch even further and aid agencies are having to redouble their efforts in the wake of this new development.
It’s a 2 day journey on foot across the desert to Gaoudel and many of the refugees arrive with just the clothes on their back and a few sheep or goats. Plan, along with other international charities, is distributing essential food items like oil, beans, millet and rice, together with mosquito nets and blankets.
Registering refugee children
We’ve also been registering Malian refugee children in local schools to avoid them dropping out altogether. School abandonment rates are noticeably on the increase in Niger as a whole with children being sent long distances to work for money or food to supplement their family’s income or supplies.
Because of its geographical location, it can sometimes feel like Niger - which has always been right at the bottom of the UN Human Development Index - is a repository for many of West Africa’s problems. As well as experiencing the knock on effect of Mali’s troubles, another neighbour’s recent woes are compounding matters.
The Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria have led to the closure of the border with Niger for fear that the militant group may attempt to extend its influence. But the resulting restricted movement means that the livestock markets in Niger have lost some of their key customers and already down on their luck pastoralists are bearing the brunt.
Dwindling food supplies
And then there’s the fallout that has been caused by some 200,000 migrant workers returning to Niger from Libya and Côte d’Ivoire in the aftermath of last year’s violence in both countries. The impact is twofold: relatives have lost the cash transfers that they previously relied on and already reduced food supplies now have to feed even more mouths.
As the 'hungry season' approaches once more, it is the most vulnerable groups in society, such as young children, who are at greatest risk of acute malnutrition, which can lead to developmental delays throughout childhood and adolescence - often leaving the young unable to maintain growth, resist infections or recover from disease.
Child malnutrition spectre
According to the head of Tillabéri’s intensive therapeutic feeding centre, malnutrition rates usually peak in June, but this year it is expected to occur as early as April given that many families have no more than a month’s supply of food to last them until the next rainy season.
With the spectre of chronic malnutrition in children once again on the horizon, Plan is stepping up its support and sending a team of health workers to 120 villages in Tillabéri to identify severe malnutrition in young children and treat or refer them as appropriate. In the meantime, we have absolutely everything crossed that there are no further calamities in store for Niger.
Mariane Pearl on meeting girl delegates at the UN
Mariane with 2 Plan-supported girl delegates at the UN
5 March 2012: Journalist and campaigner Mariane Pearl* describes meeting some remarkable Plan-supported girl delegates at the UN in New York last week.
Fatmata, 17, will have to keep her eyes down when she addresses community leaders back in rural Sierra Leone. She will have to keep her voice low and act modestly. But she will say what’s on her mind. The same way she told a room filled with policy-makers, ministers, journalists, MPs and activists gathered in New York City for the 56th Commission on the Status of Women* how she feels about early and forced marriage.
“It is a disease, a virus that threatens everyone in my country”.
Right to choose
Fatmata is a quiet girl with a forceful voice: “I stand on behalf of the girls of Sierra Leone, for our rights to choose who we marry and when. Anyone who tries to enforce early marriage should be imprisoned for 15 years.”
Communicating with the assembly of leaders is a difficult task that awaits Fatmata. But she will also act in plays, dramatising the issue to allow people in rural areas to understand the consequences of early marriage. She will talk on the radio, write and perform songs, put up posters on walls and distribute leaflets, while studying to become an accountant and working her way through college.
10 million child brides
Fatmata and her 4 siblings were raised by a single mother who was herself forced to marry at 14 but has determined that her daughters should get access to education. She has shown thereby that radical change is possible. Close to 10 million girls worldwide are forced to marry older men when they are still children.
Fatmata and Maryam, who attended the event from rural Pakistan, brought the numbers to life by describing what girls are going through around them. Maryam is only 15 and thanks to her enlightened parents she will pursue her dream of becoming a software engineer before she even thinks of getting married. But few are that lucky and she shared stories about young girls such as her neighbour Praveen (not her real name) who is 12.
The first thing Praveen did upon entering her husband’s home was to look around for toys. Then she ate the tomatoes her mother-in-law had given her to cook. She was quickly sent back to her father.
Weeping all day
“Now,” Maryam explains, “Praveen’s weeping all day. She’s too young to comprehend the meaning of marriage and divorce but she’s old enough to understand that her life is ruined”.
Coming to the UN in New York is these girls’ opportunity to ask for change. Last year girl delegates from the Because I am a Girl campaign successfully lobbied the UN to establish an international day of the girl. The first ever will take place on 11 October 2012.
We're not alone anymore
Maryam has brought a list of recommendations for her audience. She asks that girls be trusted and parents educated, she asks that the bitter realities of those marriages be openly discussed. She asks that we all join hands to allow those girls to dream and build hopes for their future.
Maryam and Fatmata spoke up to say that they were ready to take on the task to convince entire communities that girls matter and that their education has the potential to seriously help relieve poverty.
“What do you think will be the most difficult part?” I asked Maryam.
“Convincing the girls themselves,” she said, “they have no awareness. But I will show them a photograph of all the people who attended our session. I will tell them: ”look, we’re not alone anymore. You see these people? They care about us”.
Learn more about the Plan-supported girl delegates
Join Plan's Because I am a Girl campaign
* Plan is not responsible for the content on external websites
It all adds up in Benin
“Are we together?” ask the women at the table.
“Yes we are,” replies the group in unison who then start to chant, clap and dance.
And thus commences the bi-weekly meeting of the women’s village savings and loan association in Kenouhoue, Benin.
Empowering women
Key holders unlocking the group's savings box
Village savings and loan associations (VS&LA) are membership groups that give women the opportunity to participate in increasing the economic stability of their families. Most other financial structures are not accessible to women in the poorest, rural communities.
The concept is simple: women initially buy shares to establish capital. The group creates other rules for membership and participation, and elects officers including president, secretary, key holders and counters. At every meeting, members can purchase up to 5 more shares, or request a loan from the collected savings for business or education purposes.
Shares are purchased for 500cfa (Central African Francs or about US$1). The loans must be paid back with interest within a set time period. The group exists for a set term, 1 year, at the end of which, the shares are paid out plus the interest earned by the group.
At the end of a cycle, members buy new shares and the process begins anew.
Business boost
Plan supports each group with kit, advice, guidelines and training to operate the association. All funds come from the participants. In the Couffo district of Benin, Plan has helped to found and support 814 VS&LA, which adds up to greater financial security and independence for the most vulnerable households.
Beatrice Hounkanli, mother of 2, holds the position of counter in the Kenouhoue VS&LA. She used to be employed grinding manioc for minimal pay, but not anymore.
“Because I was able to save money, and take loans, I now operate my own business, selling vegetables at the market,” she says.
Impressive work
What these women do is impressive. At this meeting, the group saves more than US$60, plus US$5 for their community fund. They recently upped the price of a share from 200cfa to 500cfa because they see the good savings has done for their families and communities.
These women own businesses from beauty services and second-hand shoes, to vegetables and chickens. They support each other and are involved with what happens in their village. It’s a lesson we all should learn – by saving as individuals and collectively, we can improve our financial stability and that of our community.
Are we together? Yes we are.
Find out more about Plan’s work in Benin
Learn about Plan’s global economic security work
