Goodness and Mercy Missions: Children Education Through Women Empowerment

( Also take time to check our child sponsorship site and blogs, www.gmmafricachild.org and www.goodnessmercymission.wordpress.com).

Empowering women with skills and means to educate their children, combat family poverty, have means to basic health care and good nutrition has always been an important issue with Goodness and Mercy Missions. Already working with 6 women groups in several communities, in 2011 GMM won an award with the World Bank in the Cameroon Development Market place competition in a project Children Education through Women Empowerment. We are happy to alert you that the project has begun. Selling palm oil combined with lending and saving the women will raise money that will cater for their children's education. The first bulk buying of palm oil has been given to 10 groups of 10 women each, total 2300 litres in all.

Women groups continued to be formed in several communities. If you want to support a group to emabark on an income generating scheme, contact us at +237 75726548 or info@gmmafrica.org. Also see Below for highlights of this project...

) Project Uniqueness and Strengths:

The Project reaches self sufficiency within the 4^{th month of operation; don’t need instilling of any capital after this month.}

Capital remains within the Group: interest paid on loan remains within the group and builds the cash assets of the members.

Transparent, Democratic and flexible: Members determine their own rules and decisions are made through consensus.

Opportunity for increased Economic activity: If the group decides they can link to formal financial system to seek access to more formal and wider array of financial services.

Build Institutional Linkages: The group can leverage their social capital and organisational capacity to link into agricultural development efforts, health and education.

No freebies: Women will not get resources free of Cost, this is to encourage them to avoid any indiscriminate use of resources.

III (C) Project Goals and Objectives:

To build a capital base of 1200 USD at the end of the Project so as to cover the Children Education cost before school reopens.

Enabling women to have an access to hassle free short term credit each month to finance their other commitments.

To provide them a steady flow of money each month so that they can take care of small educational requirement of the kids during the month.

To provide a self sustainable Model for their business that will attain financial independence at the fifth month.

To help women develop a disciplined saving and investing habit and help them understand the power of systematic investment and mobilization of resources.

To help women understand the optimum utilization of resources.

To inculcate entrepreneurial and leadership skills.

III (D) Project Activities and Timeline:

a) Selection of Women: Women whose primary goal is to arrange for Tuition Fees and other educational requirements for their children will be selected and groups will be formed. It will be a homogenous group for better transparency and ease of operation. There will be 10 women in 1 group.
b) Selection of leader-
Group Leader- This leader will buy oil and will keep accounts related to Buying and selling of Oil to the members in the defined format.
Saving and Lending Kitty leader- This leader will keep a record of savings pooled by each member every month in the given format will collect repayment from the borrower with interest and will close her account in books. At the end of the Project will redistribute the Accumulated Capital in the same proportion as it was pooled in by the members.
c) Monthly Meeting- Agenda of meetings
1st Month- Distribution of Oil to the members and handing over a communication about -Cost of Oil for the coming months, Asking to keep a Provision for next month’s buying, Expectations regarding Saving, Lending Norms and condition and other Code of conduct. Meeting closes.
2nd to 12th Month- Collecting the loan Repayment from the borrower (Principal + 2.5% Interest) hereby called "Earning from S&L Kitty" & Closing her account in books. Pooling of saving and keeping the records regarding each member’s contribution. Asking the nominations for borrowing of Accumulated sum (Contribution + Earning) and taking group’s consensus. Handing over the money to borrower. Distributing the Oil at stipulated price and closing the meeting.

13th Month ie Sept 2012, the Accumulated Sum in S&L kitty is redistributed to the members; amount is redistributed in the same proportion as it is contributed. If group decides to continue sum at member level will be carry forwarded whereas if it is decided to dissolve the group it will be equally distributed.

Conditions For loan:

Loan term is 1 month but if the borrower is not able to repay loan it can be carry forwarded to a period not exceeding 3 months and interest will be charged accordingly at a flat rate of 2.5% every month.

Loan is at 2.5% per month and repayment is Principal + 2.5% per month.

Loan application for a Productive purpose is given priority.

In case of default the women is declined the share in final settlement.

At a time more than 1 member can take loan, 1 member can take loan for more than once unless she has repaid her previous loan. Maximum loan that a person can take at a time is 80 USD.

III (E) Project Monitoring and Evaluation:

The project will be lead, managed and monitored by women members of the group only. Goodness Mercy Mission will appoint a Female officer from their staff who will act as a facilitator and will take following actions:

Will facilitate election of leaders.

Will help the Group leader in price negotiation with suppliers.

Will organise training for Women leaders in book keeping

Will provide accounting formats to keep separate records at each level.

Will closely monitor the meetings for first 6 months so as to see that the records are kept properly and loan is disbursed in designated format.

Will prepare bimonthly reports on Financial and social progress, support it with members testimonials and pictures.

Will monitor the final settlement and will ensure no disagreements happen.

Will check the records every month to ensure there is no mismanagement or digression from the main objective.

GMM will provide the donors with timely reports about the projects progress including its social and financial achievements for the women. Our experience staff involved into this project will prepare these reports based on the first hand field experience. Evaluation of the project activities will be conducted on regular intervals by our senior coordinators. We will be happy to have project activities evaluated by the donor agencies experts.

III (E) Project Budget:

The project is modelled in a way that it need support only to cover cost for first 4 month after which it will become financially self sustainable. The initial costs to be covered from Grant money are Cost Price and Transportation Cost for 1 Drum of Palm Oil, and Miscellaneous cost like Cost of Empty Litre, Stationary, Phone, Local Conveyance etc.

As Oil is bought and distributed every month there is no Storage Cost involved and as it will be managed by the members and meeting are arranged at public community halls, the Administrative cost is also nil. GMM will not deduct any cost for evaluation or administration from the Grant Money.

The Project need no Future Funding and will be completely self Funded and financially independent after the Fourth Month. Refer to the Appendix for the Financial Summary.

Below is the Cost Summary

Particulars	Cost in USD
Particulars	Per month	Cost For 4 months	For 5 groups
Cost of Palm Oil	211	844	4220
Cost of Transportation	10	40	200
Miscellaneous Costs	20	80	400
Total	241	964	4820