Women social and economic strengthening

1. Introduction

In August 2024, the Charity Centre for Children and Youth Development conducted a financial literacy training program targeting 100 small-scale farmers and micro-entrepreneurs in Kasempa and Manyinga Districts. The initiative aimed to equip 80 women and 20 men with essential financial management skills to support their agricultural and entrepreneurial activities.

2. Objectives

The program was designed to:

• Provide basic financial management skills, including budgeting, savings, and record-keeping.
• Educate participants on accessing and managing credit from local financial institutions.
• Introduce investment strategies suitable for small-scale farmers and micro-entrepreneurs.
• Foster sustainable financial practices to improve household income and expand small businesses.

3. Training Activities

The sessions covered:

• Budgeting and Financial Planning: Participants learned how to create both household and business budgets, track expenses, and plan for investments.
• Savings and Credit Access: Emphasis was placed on saving habits and how to access and manage microloans without falling into debt.

Interactive group discussions and practical exercises were used to reinforce the lessons, ensuring participants gained hands-on experience in financial management.

4. Outcomes

At the conclusion of the training, participants were able to:

• Develop personal and business budgets.
• Understand the significance of savings and begin implementing strategies to build their savings.
• Explore ways to access financial resources, including village savings and loans associations (VSLAs) and formal credit facilities.
• Implement basic record-keeping practices for their farming and entrepreneurial ventures.

5. Challenges

The program faced several challenges:

• Limited access to formal financial institutions in the rural areas of Kasempa and Manyinga.
• Initial hesitance from participants regarding formal record-keeping due to low literacy levels.

To address these challenges, additional support and follow-up training sessions will be conducted, with a focus on enhancing participants' literacy skills and connecting them to nearby financial services.

6. Request for Financial Empowerment

Throughout the training, many participants expressed a desire for further financial support to help them expand their businesses and improve their livelihoods. The participants have requested access to small grants or low-interest loans to enable them to:

• Purchase farming inputs and equipment.
• Expand their small businesses by increasing stock or upgrading their operations.
• Implement new financial strategies learned during the training, such as savings plans and small-scale investments.

This request underscores the need for continued financial empowerment initiatives to complement the financial literacy training, ensuring participants can fully implement the skills they have acquired. The Charity Centre for Children and Youth Development is committed to exploring partnerships with financial institutions, microfinance providers, and donors to meet this demand and provide tailored financial products to these farmers and entrepreneurs.

7. Conclusion

The financial literacy training for small-scale farmers and micro-entrepreneurs in Kasempa and Manyinga has successfully built a foundation for improved financial management. However, for the training to have a long-lasting impact, financial empowerment through access to small grants or loans is essential. The Charity Centre for Children and Youth Development will continue to advocate for financial support to help these participants achieve sustainable growth and economic resilience.

Charity Centre for Children and Youth Development (CCCYD) has a partnership with the Deutsche Sparkassenstiftung for International Kooperation (DSIK) which involves the training of financial literacy to entrepreneurs. DSIK provides the financial support and the training materials while CCCYD sends their trainers in the field to conduct the trainings and also organizes the participants to be trained. The trainings being conducted by CCCYD includes the Farmers Business Simulation (FBS) and Micro Business Simulation (MBS). It was for this reason that CCCYD partnered with farmers in Serenje and three FBS trainings were organized and conducted. CCCYD is located in Solwezi and apart from financial literacy, the organization also has other activities which includes Mentorship programs, they sponsor students in colleges, they have a campaign called Good Deeds. At their head office in Solwezi, they have a school, a Poultry project and Hammer mill among other things. They work with communities in different capacities.  

2.0 Terms of Reference of Trainers/Deliverables

As the overall objective of the Business Simulation Trainings is to have a minimum of 20 participants mobilized from the emerging and existing small farmer holders. The training should enable the participants to manage and grow a farm as a business.  

Specifically, the Trainers are expected to deliver:

• Organizational and logistical preparation of the training including transport and the coordination of the training activity
• Actual hands on training
• Three rounds of the simulation of up to three days
• A comprehensive written report with detailed results of the assignment addressed to DSIK
• The Report to be written in English and submitted in a Microsoft office format in the agreed time frame.

3.0 Trainers / Training team

The training was conducted by trainers, the trainers are qualified and certified trainers who train the Farmers Business Simulation and were trained in 2018 and have been conducting the trainings since then. Amos has a background of Agriculture as he is a qualified Agriculture officer and has worked in the Banking industry with Small and Medium farmers under the credit department. Isa has sufficient Agriculture knowledge as he has worked for AB Banking in the Agriculture department and he is also a trained Agriculture officer.

4.0 Training Target Groups

The group that was trained is located in Kasama,Northern Province.These farmers are doing different kinds of farming and mostly they are youths. And apart from farming activities, some of the group members are involved in trading businesses like grocery shops.

5.0 Training Methodology

The training was conducted for three (3) days. On the first day, the agenda of the whole training was shared with the participants. The ground rules were set and the expectations of the farmers were written, the introduction to CCCYD and DSIK was done.

Four groups were formed by assigning numbers to participants from 1 to 4. All the 1s took up Group One and the same was done for the other numbers to make 4 Groups. The groups had a fair representation of both genders as there was at least one male in every group. The participants had members who were able to read and write in each group making it easy to choose a secretary for each group. Team one was called COMESA Farm, team two was called CHASHA Farm, team 3 was called MAKULU Farm and team four was called TWENDE Farm.It was easy to assign other group members to carry out other tasks in each team such as movements on Quality of Farm and Quality of Life metrics on the board while other members were responsible for movements of the coins on the board.The participants were taken through the Board and the question and answer session followed just to ensure that the participants understood the board and everything on it sufficiently. The training layout or overview followed. The simulation for round one was also done on the first day.

Day two started with a recap of the previous day. Participants were asked to contribute during the recap of things that they learned the previous day. This was followed by an introduction to round 2 before which, a know how session was done on the 3 Financial Statements and the groups proceeded with round 2 of the simulation. The end of day 2 was marked by assigning groups with the task of researching on the know how sessions which were given to the respective group.

Day 3 started with a recap of the previous day. An introduction to round 3 followed and the groups proceeded to go through the 3^rd round after which it was time for a break. After the break, know how session followed. Groups presented their assigned know how tasks which was done after lunch. These presentations were followed by the feedback session and results. After this, the training evaluation for DSIK was done. After which, certification was done. This was followed by closing remarks by the trainers and the leader of the farmers marked the end of the training.