Wednesday, March 21, 2012

SACCOS Training Session At Kihesa


Today we started the training sessions at Kihesa.  All 20 of the new, existing, or emerging SACCOS were represented at our session.  Overall we had 48 elected officials there with another 12 expected to arrive sometime tomorrow.  We are off to a good start!

The day started with devotions by the Kihesa pastor and greetings from Chavalla, the general secretary at DIRA.  Chavalla talked about how important the SACCOS are to the poor in the Diocese and how valuable the program is to all of the villages in the Diocese.   We each extended our greetings to the group.  Tom told them that we had traveled about 3,000 kilometers visiting 22 parishes, and that the assembled group represented (almost) 1,000 members with about 120,000,000 schillings in assets.  He also told them a few stories we had heard from villagers during our visits about what the SACCOS are accomplishing in their lives.

Following introductions and greetings, the training sessions began.  The emphasis on Day 1 was understanding the constitution of the SACCOS.   Each attendee was given a bound, printed copy of the constitution we are asking them to use.   The differences in the constitution for each SACCOS will be the amount of the entrance fees, the share prices, and the minimum purchases – and even those we expect to be very close.

Christopher Ugulumu, the Iringa Coop Officer presented the first class in understanding the constitution.  It soon became clear that even those leaders who have had constitutions given to them before have never really read them (no surprise).  Christopher talked for about an hour and a half before the group broke for lunch.  After the lunch break, the Coop Officer from Kilolo District gave the second class on the constitution.  The constitution and the legal operation of a SACCOS were explained page by page.  During the next two hours there were many questions.  Finally, about 4:30, the discussion ended for the day.

Our last task of the day was to take photos of the attendees. We want to take pictures of each group of SACCOS officers, so every group that had all officers in attendance lined up to have their group photo taken.  (So far there are 12 with all of their officers here – the other 8 should finish arriving by tomorrow).  We made sure we had their names correct, along with the office they are holding, and wished them a good night!  (It was good to note that we remembered almost all of them from our recent visits.  Sandy even remembered which village most of them were from – Tom of course did not!)  It was good to meet the new officers from Itungi.  (You may recall that when we were last there they were holding elections.) 

We chatted awhile with the Kilolo SACCOS officer.  He had been planning on going down to Nyanzwa to supervise the election of new officials yesterday.  Unfortunately he was called to a meeting so he will not make it until next week.  He did tell us however that all of the loans, interest, and fines had been collected.  This means that with the election of new officials Nyanzwa will be back in business and all of our SACCOS will be running well.

There were 48 SACCOS officials in attendance.

Christopher Ugulumu explained the constitution in the morning.

After lunch the Kilolo Coop Officer took over.

During afternoon coffee Tom starting giving candy to the kids.  Soon there was a crowd and Sandy took over.

Itiweni had a few closing remarks.

Sandy not only remembered the officers we had met, she remember which village they were from - Tom did not!

No comments:

Post a Comment