The following is an update provided to Bella Luccè from Ezra Simon, the Program Officer for Africa via Trickle Up. Bella Luccè has partnered with Trickle Up for the 2006 calendar year, specifically supporting their Mali program. Mr. Simon has just returned from the field and we are honored that he offered us the following insight…
“I visited the group of 20 women supported by Trickle Up through coordinating partner agency ADA, which stands for Association des Aquaculteurs, or the Fish Farming Association. ADA has made its mark in the wide-ranging communities that are settled along the length of the Niger River. While the area is generally fertile during most years, it takes hard work and perseverance to eke out a living. In addition, during some years, such as the drought of 2005, conditions can become taxing. ADA works in the Tillaberi area, located a half-day northwest of Niamey, the capital. Access is by car and then by river barge. All of the women in this group are from an islet called Mansourou. As in many villages in West Africa, market day is a major event and it only comes once a week. In this case, the women travel two hours by riverboat each Monday to the market of Gotheye.
The groups work within the framework of a f’ru-f’ru, often known in French as a tontine. These savings affinity groups are often known more for serving social needs such as a wedding or a mourning period. However, in this case, adaptations have been made in order to encourage the client to specifically save so that funds can be re-invested in the business. At present, they save 1,000 CFA ($2) per person per week, or 20,000 ($10) for the group each week. In addition, they keep a sack of rice as a security stock to guard against price fluctuations. Though ADA has field staff, they also rely on a local woman who’s also a grant recipient, Khadiatou Seyni, who functions as the on-the-ground trainer, or animatrice.
Their business involves several steps: buying local paddy rice and empty sacks, soaking it in basins and drums, then drying and hulling it, transporting it to market, and finally, selling the rice. But this isn’t just any rice—the profit margins are quite impressive and the reason is that people who come from the city to make large purchases seek out the rice produced in this area. In addition to the $100 per person that was provided by Trickle Up, the women contributed mats for the drying process, pint-size calabashes for hulling by throwing the rice up in the air, as well as basins and cups as measurement instruments for selling.
I spoke some more with Khadi Seyni, and she explained that she has five children, two of which are school-age. The two school-age children are enrolled, but she adds that she too has been in a sort of school. The interesting aspect here is that ADA works both with her and through her to get the message out to the other women. Though Khadi attended school for only a few years, a literacy program that ADA also supports has enabled her to become conversant in French and able to write in both her own language, which is Djerma (Zarma), as well as French. Possibly more striking, however, is the glow that Khadi shares when describing how far her group has come. When we say that it can be difficult to measure women’s empowerment, Khadi is someone who can clearly defy this adage of international development thinking. Prior to becoming involved with Trickle Up, she states, “I knew how to calculate, but there was nothing for me to be adding up. All that I had to know was how much I was going to need to borrow!”
These days, things have changed for the women of Mansourou. They see their work as an investment with specific amounts of revenue at different periods during the year. While they haven’t yet reconstituted the initial capital, they realize that this is crucial to the process of building their business. They have also succeeded in offering a product at the market that is sufficiently differentiated that the price they can charge is competitive.
When we look more closely at the process, it’s possible to see just how each part of the family contributes. All of Khadi’s children help her in boiling, and drying the rice, and her husband helps with transporting it by pirogue (dug-out log canoe) to the market. The very youngest children are needed in order to chase the chicks away from the rice while it’s drying. The resulting rice fetches an ever-rising price in the Gotheye market. In addition, the rice peelings are sold as animal fodder, but in the future, the women intend to use the rice peelings to feed their own animals. Currently the women are not engaged in animal husbandry because they cannot afford to buy animals, though their plan is to rear sheep and goats with the second installment of the Trickle Up grant. After that, they would like to buy a cow so that their families will have a steady supply of milk. Cows cost 50,000 CFA ($92) so this may take them a few years but the plans are definitely there. The group also has plans to set up a joint cereal bank and to purchase a mill so that they can process rice in larger quantities and more efficiently.
Khadi Seyni explained that each woman benefiting from a Trickle Up grant is able to sell a 50-kilo bag of rice once a week, which is bought for 15,000 CFA ($28), and which is sold for 18,000 CFA ($33). Each woman contributes 1,000 CFA ($2) of her 3,000 CFA ($6) profit towards a group fund, which is used to buy rice for the future, when food may be scarce or in case the price of rice rises.
The women usually have no problem selling all their rice before noon. Khadi Seyni assured me that even if they don’t sell their rice today they would be able to sell it next week; in fact, the women have been engaged in this commerce for five months without any major pitfalls.
As we know, market commerce never moves in only one direction. Moreover, returning to the village with empty hands and facing one’s family would be an insult. At the Gotheye market, everything is available for the village of Mansourou’s needs: salt, baobab leaves, hibiscus flowers for making juice, kerosene to have light, dried okra and salt for seasoning, and local millet donuts as a treat for the kids.
When asked about how she would like to adjust the business process that she and the other women use, she tells me that, for one thing, she was only bringing a calabash full of rice at the beginning. These days she brings an entire 50-kilo sack and it’s all sold by the end of the day. People in the market know her and come and speak with her about their problems, hoping to seek out solutions based on the model that she’s used. Naturally, many of these same people come to her asking to become a part of one of the groups. So far, though, they feel that it’s the cohesion and peer support that has helped them to succeed.
Khadi Seyni expressed her gratitude for the grants and said that before she and her friends in the community were suffering, but now they are happier. She said that prior to the Trickle Up grants she was “doing nothing and had no money.” Now she’s spending some of her money, is occupied with running a business, and that she’s starting to prosper. She explains to me that the main difference she has sensed is that her children are no longer crying for a good meal. In addition, she explains to me that she’s now able to buy toys for her children, which was something she would never have considered before leading her own business. Of course, life in Mansourou is not easy; indeed, Khadi explains to me that the mosquitoes are still as vigorous as ever during the malaria season. But she tells me that her family is now able to eat what they like rather than merely what they have, that they dress with satisfaction.
Drought Relief
For Niger, the idea is that in just about any year, the same people would be suffering, but that in 2005 they were significantly less resilient due to environmental and political constraints. Business start-up grants are a long-term investment in bringing families to some measure of stability and are considered a forward-thinking approach to a stressed environment.
It is primarily through animal husbandry and grain storage that Trickle Up’s funding has been best utilized. Though the focus is less on business innovation or even much on growth, the mission of serving the poorest of the poor is at its purest in such circumstances.
A country such as Niger is extremely vulnerable during any year; all it takes is a small faltering of expectations and the system can reach the breaking point. Naturally, what I witnessed in Tillaberi and Maradi, two of the hardest-hit areas of the country, was that the situation has not greatly improved, even if there are no longer emaciated children at feeding centers. Street beggars are rampant, imported food sacks are constantly on the move, and people are merely doing their best to get back on their feet. The entrepreneurs who have benefited from a Trickle Up grant have been able to circumvent these effects—and in many cases—their community as well."
I am again humbled by the work of Trickle Up. If you feel inspired to help, please visit their website. Ezra has just mailed me a disc of photographs from the trip and I hope to add them to the blog very soon.
