SISSALA EAST: Micro finance savings model for Sissala women

Women industry

About 10,000 women in the Sissala East and West Districts of the
Upper West Region have formed the Villages Savings and Loans
Associations (VSLA) and mobilised GH¢ 90,000 through a micro-finance savings model code-named Accumulating savings and Credit Associations (ACSA).

Plan Ghana, a child centered intenational NGO, assembled the people and provided them with technical advice.

According to the Tumu Area Manager of Plan Ghana, Mr. Richard
Boadu, beneficiaries repay the loans through the straight line method, which involves spliting the interest over an initial period by paying the principal at the end and they receive the loan according to their contributions to the savings.

Speaking at the second graduation of the second batch of members of the VSLA in Tumu, Mr. Boadu, who quoted from the 2005 Ghana
Human Development report, explained that 30 percent of the people did not have access to any form of financial services, which is a serious drawback to rural growth.

Based on this, he said, Plan Ghana through its microfinance model introduced the VSLA in the Sissala West District in 2007 to whip up membership drive, improve upon the savings habit among the people to enable them to mobilise funds to start new businesses in their respective communities.

"As at October 2009, a number of communities in the Sissala West and East Districts with over 10,000 members from 400 associations were benefiting directly from the Plan Ghana VSLA scheme".

He added that Plan Ghana had also trained about 45 village agents to support members of the associations and their groups in their work and also work to form more groups pointing out that "painstaking efforts had been made to build the capacities of the members of the associations".

The Deputy Upper West Regional Minister, Mr. Caesar, Kale expressed appreciation to Plan Ghana for the initiative and was
optimistic that the scheme would bring relief to people since it would provide them with an immediate access to cridit.

PF