Theresia Agricola is the founder of 10 VICOBA groups in
Rombo district and one group in Mwanga district and the chairperson of the Mharu
VICOBA group in Rombo district, Kilimanjaro. She is one of the beneficiaries of
the Kivinet-MIVARAF project, as a part of which VICOBA members and their
leaders received training regarding financial management, group management, and
entrepreneurship. According to her, “before
having received training, our group was operated informally. We used to keep
remaining money in our treasurer’s house instead of in a bank account and we did
not keep our records properly either. Having received
training in financial management and group management from KIVINET, enabled by
MIVARAF funds, we now keep our records properly in ledger books that were introduced
to us during the training. And after having been linked with financial
institutions, we opened a bank account and now use to keep our extra money in
the account.”
Mrs. Agricola also says that she individually benefits a
lot from the VICOBA and the entrepreneurship training as well. She is now running
several successful businesses and is doing very well. With one of her
businesses, she is keeping and selling chicken and goats. Her family eats the
eggs and she sells the chicken to purchase schoolbooks for her children.
She furthermore says: “I benefited
from the VICOBA more than any other member of the group. I was able to pay the
tuition fees of my two sons, one of which goes to university and the other one
to a high level school. I might not have been able to send the children to
school if I had not received the financial support from my group. Later, I was
able to pay back the loan to the group, after having sold chicken, and goats.”
Mrs. Agricola hopes that more groups can participate in the trainings
in the future as the positive effect on her own group was tremendous.
NB:KIVINET is a key VICOBA promoter partner of FASO in Kilimanjaro
