Motshelo (Money Saving Communities)
Submitted by joonsbaek on Wed, 06/29/2011 - 5:16am
Countries
BotswanaTags
community bankingThemes
do-it-yourselfLink:
Stakeholders / Promoters:
Individuals within community (mostly women)
Background/ Context:
Not all people are illegible or have access to formal financial service providers such as banks. Even if they did, many feel the financial service providers’ charges are too high and terms of payment are not affordable to them. Within the community, members of Motshelo are able to create a sense of financial security and inter reliance on one another to settle debts and purchase essentials.
Case Description:
Motshelo is a household saving and borrowing activity that is a popular alternative to formal saving because the requirements for accessing credit are not as cumbersome as those offered by financial institutions. This initiative provides financial security and is a trust based. It acts like a social network. Each participating individual within the group contributes an agreed sum of money and can draw loans from the pot for necessities such as school fees, uniform and other emergencies. The interest charged by borrowing money from the scheme will be shared among members at the end of the end.
Benefits (Social, and environmental benefits):
The benefits to the members are reliability, trust and security of money.
