The financial situation of the miserable people of the rural and semirural areas is affecting their life condition empeaching them to have any approach to the market and any access to basic financial services.
One of the first steps we take in the villages is facilitating the creation of self help groups and helping them to open a bank account in the name of the group. Negotiations with the local banks permits us to obtain very cheap account expenses and very high active interest rates for their small accounts.
All the small savings of the members are collected in this account under the supervision of two group leaders elected by the same people.
After one year of empowerment and preparation the group members are trained and encouraged to start an income generating activity trough the system of the solidarity group advance, free of interests; all the members are guarantors each other. The small activities can be individual or group based.
The repayment method is defined in collaboration with all the group members.
After the entire repayments of all the members of the group another advance is sanctioned and so on in a rotational way until the self independence of the whole village is reached.
As a component of the microfinancial assistance provided by the Arbor program, a negotiation made with a local insurance company is permitting today to offer a micro insurance to all the poor village people with an annual share of less than 3 US$ each; this is permitting them to be protected from natural calamities, envalidating sicknesses and premature death.