Training & education
Providing entrepreneurs with savings and loans is not enough. Giving communities the infrastructure to pool their resources is a start, but in the short-term, distributing loan capital without business training can result in increased consumerism. In the long-term, the debts incurred from loans that aren't combined with education can actually hamper economic growth. And that's why each of our programmes are built around a core of financial literacy and business training. We also provide literacy and numeracy training for communities before saving & loaning.
Our unique combination of experienced community partners, Savings Groups, and Anglican Church reach, provides a great platform for training and reduces the costs of administration, monitoring and follow-up. Each Savings Group is trained by our community partners in basic literacy and numeracy, then savings and credit processes, basic business skills, financial literacy, financial planning, book-keeping, diversification and marketing.
Staff of the Nakuru Community Development Trust explain basic interest to a Savings Group in the Kadokoi parish, Nakuru Diocese, Kenya.
The trainer uses a water-gourd analogy to show how funds flow in and out of the Group.
After a period of around six months of savings Groups can begin having members apply to take out a small loan. Each member applying must draw up their individual business plan with support from Five Talents’ community partner staff.
Over the course of the loan repayment, Field Officers visit our members to monitor and provide business mentoring, encouragement and ongoing training.
The Savings Group formation and business skills training provided to Groups by our partners was developed my The Chalmers Center. You can read more about them here.
What role does the UK office play?
Five Talents staff in the UK are heavily involved in the planning and training stages. We also provide oversight and assistance where necessary.
However, all of our programmes have expert local management teams and local Boards. The day to day running of our programmes is all carried out by staff located within the communities they support. They train new members in Group formation and business training, they oversee the savings processes and loans distributions, and they carry out the monitoring, repayment and recycling of loans.
Why we need funds
In addition to oversight and long-term planning, the role of Five Talents UK is to raise the funds which enables the programme staff to form, train and support Savings Groups. The support of our donors allows community partners to mentor members and help them grow their businesses.
It's a partnership model of equality and mutual respect where programme staff and staff in the UK learn from and encourage one another.
Where to next?