#InternationalDayfortheEradicationofPoverty
This blog post was written by James McArdle, our Director of Communications & Strategic Engagement.
Member counting money at their Savings Group meeting in South Sudan.
Today is International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. It seems that every day, there is another ‘Day’. Will this one be a game-changer? Does having a designated day to talk about poverty eradication really move the dial or does it instead contribute to fatigue for a
virtue-weary audience?
Maybe these kinds of ‘days’ are also in danger of locking in a conversation where we focus too much on what we do; our perspectives; our agendas, or we overload with statistics that support the narrative of a mountainous and unmanageable challenge.
The fact is sustainable poverty eradication in communities around our world will neither be realised by us, nor done to others.
For Five Talents the journey is a collaborative and community-led endeavour which has the day-to-day and lived reality of individual savings group members at its heart. What are their challenges, their ideas, their opportunities, and their hopes to build a better life for themselves?
Ramona is 34, and part of a Savings Group in Karamoja, Uganda. She recently attended some training for Savings Group leaders in Moroto, the regional capital, where she proudly shared her story of success, and testified to the benefits she has experienced through membership of her Group. Her story has been captured by Anne, the Programme Manager in Karamoja - she shares with us…
‘Before joining the Group, Ramona used to struggle so much to raise money for her children’s school fees, and for dressing and feeding them. The family could go some days without food and children could ‘delay’ reporting to school when schools open. Her relatives from whom she could beg money to support her family were now tired and they called her names.
'Ramona recalls when David, a community-based trainer involved in the programme, convinced her to join the Savings Group even when she explained that she didn’t have consistent sources of income to save weekly. She joined the Group with a fear of being intimidated by other Group members because she could not raise regular savings.
'One year later, and after a year of saving, Ramona was also encouraged by other members to take a loan from the Group to start a small business. Ramona says she feared getting a loan because she did not have business skills and she had never done business in her life before.
'Ramona says her luck and courage were gathered when Anne, the Programme Manager, came in and trained them in business skills and from then she was motivated to apply for a loan to start her business.
'After investing the loan into her small retail shop, Ramona says, her family life became transformed because she was now able to pay her loan from her profits, pay her daughter’s fees, and buy other scholastic materials right from the time her daughter joined senior secondary level to the university level, which her daughter has now finished.
'Ramona says, from the loan and savings she has built an iron-roofed house, where she is settled with her family. And she was also able to open more land for cultivation to provide enough food for her family.'
In the terms described by this day, ‘International Day for the Eradication of Poverty,’ Ramona eradicated poverty from her life, she is able to reflect on the sense of dignity she experienced through work, and she also provided amazing educational opportunities for her children. Her hard work, her vision, her courage. Ramona’s story exemplifies the small sustainable steps replicated tens of thousands of times in Savings Groups across central and eastern Africa. So, when we have ‘Days’ named like this, let's not get caught up with the narrative of an overwhelming challenge, or indeed our ideas and solutions. Let's instead celebrate those who are grabbing hold of a better future for themselves, their family and their community.