Our community bank began in January 2009 with 20 members. The majority of those involved are active participants in our youth group while the remaining associates are parents and neighbors of said youth. Our community bank meets every Saturday night to update the group on the status of funds, give out loans, address issues, hold a weekly raffle and plan future fund raising events. As of March 2009 we have held two big events including a town bingo night and a raffle of foodstuff both of which (on top of our weekly raffle) were very successful in increasing our bank’s balance. For May we are planning a mother´s day raffle.

The community bank is an experiment for me as well as the youth group and we are learning how to do this as we go and while the peace corps manual has served as an instrumental and important guide it has been just that, a guide. I never thought I could start a community bank of all things. I am terrible with numbers and math but I really really believe in the project.

What is a community bank? A community bank is a group of committed people who pay a certain amount of money each week ( the amount is decided by each group in our case we pay $1.50) and the money paid is kept in a sturdy wooden box about the size of a basketball that has three locks with three keys. The group elects a board consisting of a president, secretary, treasurer and two auditors, three of these officers keep a key and the treasurer keeps the box so that in order to steal money a total of four people would have to conspire against the group. After a certain amount of time in our case three months the bank is ready to give small loans to members with the following stipulations: the loan is to be paid back within one month with 10% interest. The idea is that these small loans would be used towards micro-business plans etc but the member is not required to explain to the group the reason for the loan. In one month the loan is re-paid to the group with the 10% interest. The idea is that people keep taking loans to better their lives and the money made from the interest stays within the group so that when the bank liquidates ( as we plan to in one year) each member will receive back all of their weekly payments plus the interest. In order to increase the income a group may decide to fund raise for example we have done a raffle and a bingo night. All the profits are returned to the bank box and eventually to the members.

Many women in my village aren’t allowed to work because their husbands won’t let them but the community bank is a chance to earn a little extra cash and perhaps through a loan start a small business out of their home.

We gave out our first loans this past Saturday which is really exciting! I am nervous to see that everything gets paid back but I guess only time will tell.