AIDSImpact.com:: - Santa Fe, USA 2011

Abstract #51 - Empowering & building infected & affected people capacity by self-financing initiatives: A very successful community experience
Authors: Presenting Author: Mr Daogo Jacques Abraham Soubeiga - Association Espoir et vie
Additional Authors:
Aim: The target of this experience was to grant efficient supports to 30 infected and affected people, helping them in recovering their socioeconomic independence through microfinance. Then they received financial supports
Method / Issue: The project consisted in setting regular meetings with the prospect recipients in order to discuss and make the analysis of their situation through participative assessment and diagnostic of their specific needs. Those meetings were coached by resource persons. So the participants could formulate their micro-projects and select them thanks to objective and measurable criteria. So some economic activities have been selected for financing. The next step was to set up five small groups, each with a responsible, by fields of activities. The goal of setting such groups by field was an option to help the participants monitoring and following up each one activity. Then we used two financing ways: one was to set a guarantee fund in a microfinance institution which would give small credits ($100 to $500) that would be repaid after twelve months (12 recipients). The second way was to grant financial support using the organization’s funds. In that case the recipient also had to repay after twelve months (18 months). The last step was to give trainings to the participants to helping them managing their activities and accompany them in the implementation of their projects. Each responsible of team (group) had to monitor each member of his group and make regular report about the evolution of each one activity. All recipients met once a month to discuss about their projects and any relevant thing about them.
Results / Comments: After twelve months of implementation we noticed remarkable outputs: people learn more about managing their own projects, all the recipients, financed by the microfinance institution repaid their entire credits on time. However we faced difficulties from those directly financed by the organization. Then we used to make an analysis of the prospective reasons of such situation. We found that those people had false perception of granting from their organization considering that it’s their right and almost 60% of them reimbursed their duties with delays, two to four months later after several dealings between the responsible of teams, the organization leaders and the recipients.
Discussion: Finally we’ve learnt that granting financial support to people in community organizations is more efficient when it’s helped by an experienced institution such as financial ones.
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