SUCCESS STORY: HOW VICOBA BENEFIT COMMUNITY MEMBERS

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