Financial Need

The Microfinance Brigades program is working to address the issue that in most rural farming communities there is no access to financial services such as savings and loans. This causes farmers to be dependent upon intermediaries who take advantage of them by charging high interest rates on loans and offer a very low price for the crops, which the communities produce. As a result, most community members have been trapped in a cycle of debt or are just able to make enough money to feed their families and purchase necessities. Therefore, Microfinance Brigades is working to address these issues by providing rural communities with a strong financial system with access to loans, savings accounts, and capital to fund community projects and education initiatives, resulting in a culture of community empowerment and financial literacy.

Community Bank

The MFB program develops community banks which offers 3% interest rate loans to families and also administrates the money for families. The MFB team seeks out a minimum of 10 leaders to conduct the training on the community-banking shareholder model and helps them to establish an executive board, auditing committee, credit committee, create their books and a Public Health projects account, and begin paying initial shares and starting the lending process.

Microfinance Brigades

Once a community bank is fully trained, they are able to begin receiving brigaders. The program staff prepares the community bank by requesting them to prepare various activities for brigaders. This year, the program will be meeting families selected by the community bank members who will be receiving groups on house visits and creating profiles to send to the students before the brigade.  Following a brigade, the program team will meet with the community bank to discuss the financial literacy workshops, and consultations with families. The MFB team creates an agreement along with an investment plan that the community bank president and treasurer must sign. At the end of each year, the program revisits the agreements to ensure that the allocation was utilized properly and that the money is reinvested into other projects in the community. Ideally, the program technician visits each community bank every 1-2 weeks to do follow-up and provides assistance for ongoing projects or investments being made. As community banks grow and become more self-sustaining, the program can withdraw brigades and lessen the follow-up to every 2-4 weeks, 2-3 months, 6 months, etc. The main goals of the program within the community is to not only establish a community bank with access to savings and loans but to train the members and executive board to be able to assist in the facilitation of other social projects in the community such as electricity, health initiatives, home repairs, etc. The community bank essentially becomes a final sustaining resource in the community that completes the Global Brigades holistic model and allows the programs to eventually sustainability transition out of a community.