I pass on using chat. I prefer emails. I prefer emails over the telephone even here in my city.

It's alright Ken, we'll email you then.

At the moment I can only use MSN messenger :roll:
hope it's ok for you.

Guillaume informed me that he will be available tomorrow as well (same time)
so if you prefer we can move it for tomorrow.

let me know.

Sonja

Hello All,

Greetings from Khunti -

I am really happy for the discussions going on for the community. I think my experience will count a lot for this community and I want this community go stronger.

I have a suggestion for this community to start with - involve the members who have the cows - form the co-operative and start organising them as per the concept/ project decided - once they are involved we all simultaneously work for getting more cows for other community members.

This will build the confidence with in the community and will also come to know if they can work with the unity - UNITY is very much important in this work - one of the major reasons of failure in Khunti was UNITY and working together -/ with community adjusting with the concept.

will see if I can make it for the meeting.

with many best wishes,

Praveen

Dear neighbours,

just to confirm that the chat session will take place tommorow March 7, at 4.10PM. We'll use MSN messenger, so please all of you who would like to participate send me your MSN IDs on private account or my email.

Preveen, thank you for your suggestion. We'll see with our Local Representative if any of the people have cows, I don't know for sure.

Looking fwd to "seeing" you tommorow.

Sonja

Goormorning all,
In one of his contributions, Ken mentionned already the Heifer International organisation. I have looked on their Dutch website and learned that they donate animals and provide training to families. Their method is as follows:
1. building together sheds/stables and planting food crops
2. after a period, the families receive an animal.
Question to Guillaume: do you agree with Ken, that the people should not receive an animal as a gift, but that they should pay for the goat/cow? Would they be willing to pay and how much can they afford? This is also a point that
Tanja made in her posting.
3. Heifer also provides community-building and micro-credits.
Should we also expand the project in this way or shall we keep it, as it is ?
The average project of Heifer takes between 3 and 5 years.
How do we feel about this period of time?
Finally, Sonja, Heifer Holland(Netherlands) is supporting a project in your homecountry, Bosnia. In the village of Vijacani , their local partner Dorcas, has provided 8 farmers little lambs and they are also working together with farmers coming from Mostar. Maybe you can contact the people involved? Also I can telephone Heifer Netherlands for names and tel.numbers.
Regards,
Nico

Hi Nico,
I passed on the posting and find that contribution is important.I agree with ken that community could pay for received animals but along a periode of the project.It doesn't mean that as soon as cow is handed to community ipsofacto the community gives money.People first will work and give them time to refund.

The project should give time to community to produce, sell and reamburse(by instalments).

Gradually the project is matching the microcredit approche,it 's evident that the microcredit approche help community to contribute for their development.

You asked the rate of rembursment,the community wil be willing to pay if the project gives them time.we do discuss with them,to see how to draw conclusion.

Guillaume
Walungu Local R.

If a family receives a cow without paying anything, even as little as US$1 for example, I think experience shows they are not really interested in the cow. It needs to cost them something up front. Can pay more in stallments if that is required. If you ask a 100 families if they would like to have a cow, my opinion is that 99 would say yes.

Hi everyone.

Nico thank you very much for your contribution.

Regarding donations I agree with Ken and have nothing to add to that. And I too think that the community needs to contribute something from the beginig.

Plus, I am convinced that the community would have the first goat much sooner, in next several months or so, if they choose to form saving groups. Does not matter how little they can save, they would have something before any donation or loan become available. And the goats are not only cheaper than cows but they also have offspring more often and usually have twins. Thus, more families would benefit sooner.

I think that donations or loans should only be supplementary means, not the main ones. Heifer International might be helpful, but I think that the people should already start by themselves. To take the action now. And the harder to save the money for them, the more they will appreciate what they have and the better they will take care of it. I’m convinced that the project would be much more successful that way.

As for the microloans, I’m affraid that they will only bring dependency, just like Ken pointed once. We really would like to help the Walungu people to get empowered, to be independent, free.

Guys, you are all from very different parts of the world and I don’t know how much you know about Bosnia - but it’s also a poor country destroyed by a war. Having lived here, I very well understand how difficult it is to recover from the war. I’m working in a bank and I can tell you that over here a huge number of people is literally drowning in debts. If you don’t consider carefully all pros and cons of your loan and if you don’t plan carefully how to pay it back, you’re in a serious trouble.

When you take a loan, you’re not paying back only the sum you have taken – you have to pay interest on the loan as well. And if you live in a politicaly instable country - your interest will be HUGE. I believe that here in Bosnia we are doing much better than DRC; yet, our interest rates are enormous. It’s just that investors are not ready to risk to give their money in an instable area – they want huge pay off for their risk.

I think we can consider microloans as well, but only for some smaller amounts, not for the whole project, and not right away. Just imagine that something happens to the animals, something that is beyond of their control – such a risk always exists. How are they going to pay off the debts?

That’s why I always insist on starting small and gradually growing strong – so that they could avoid getting dependent. Beside saving groups, maybe they could try to involve people who already have goats, maybe to negotiate with them to pay them for insemination and to provide some food for the goats or to provide the work (that way they also could learn about how to take care of the animals) in exchange for a kid...
Just an idea...

We can combine all these methods, but I strongly believe that the community has to start now, to do whatever they can do for themselves. For their own sake.

I’d like to hear your comments guys.

Take care
Sonja

Sonja,

I think debt is a problem all over the world. I used to work for a bank in Cincinnati, Ohio and I had many customers struggling with debt and high interest rates ( although 20-30%/year will be considered low in other parts of the world). May be their reasons to be in debt are different than the reasons the Bosnian people have, but the outcome is the same. Debt creates a vicious cycle.

I want to share some of my experience in Cambodia. Until recently each farmer ( a producer of rice and/or chicken) sold its production individually (to the local market or to a middle man). At one point a local NGO started an educational campaign -the goal was to convince the local farmers of the benefits of working in cooperative. If you know anything about the recent history of Cambodia you will understand the hesitation of the local farmers to work together and trust each other. We interviewed representatives of sixteen different cooperatives in two provinces and the feedback was very positive. First- the farmers were able to negotiate better prices for their production. Second- the knowledge transfer in the village was much easier. Third- the farmers (especially the chicken producers) were able to negotiate with the middle man a fixed fee per chicken sold ( about 0.12 USD)on the top of the price. This fee was going to a village savings fund ( on average 5-6 USD/month) and everybody with immediate need of money could draw money from this fund at 2% interest per year (the usual interest rate charged by the local village lenders was 10-20% per month). The Cambodian farmers' reaction to borrowing from microfinancing institutions was mixed- some people were very satisfied because they were able to use the money to generate additional income and to repay the loan. Other people purchased pigs, the pigs died and the farmers were not able to repay the loan and lost some of their land.

One of the farmers associations also started its own pilot savings group. Each person deposited 0.05 USD per every chicken sold (average price of a chicken sold- 2.5USD).For a month this added up to 2-3 USD- the cost of raising a chicken was on average 1.5 USD. This savings model was a new idea and the savings were kept separated from the village savings fund generated by the fees paid by the middleman. At the time of the interview the farmers did not have a clear plan how to use this savings but the general opinion was that the money should be used to increase productivity.All of the farmers lived on less than a dollar a day, their productivity was very low (about 2000 kg paddy rice per hectare per year and the farmers needed about 1500 kg for their own consumption),nonetheless - they were willing to save money!

I said in my posting "If you ask a 100 families if they would like to have a cow, my opinion is that 99 would say yes." but what I failed to say "if the cows are donated to you" but if you demand some financial input from those 100 families, I would guess that only 5-20 would want a cow. People are not crazy. If you want to give me something, I will take it. Why not?

Hi Sonja,
Strange, I just wanted to add a remark and your whole
contribution appears again....Anyway: what do you mean with
" to provide work in exchange of a kid"....? A kid animal?
Nico

Sonja Marjanovic wrote:

Hi everyone.

Nico thank you very much for your contribution.

Regarding donations I agree with Ken and have nothing to add to that. And I too think that the community needs to contribute something from the beginig.

Plus, I am convinced that the community would have the first goat much sooner, in next several months or so, if they choose to form saving groups. Does not matter how little they can save, they would have something before any donation or loan become available. And the goats are not only cheaper than cows but they also have offspring more often and usually have twins. Thus, more families would benefit sooner.

I think that donations or loans should only be supplementary means, not the main ones. Heifer International might be helpful, but I think that the people should already start by themselves. To take the action now. And the harder to save the money for them, the more they will appreciate what they have and the better they will take care of it. I’m convinced that the project would be much more successful that way.

As for the microloans, I’m affraid that they will only bring dependency, just like Ken pointed once. We really would like to help the Walungu people to get empowered, to be independent, free.

Guys, you are all from very different parts of the world and I don’t know how much you know about Bosnia - but it’s also a poor country destroyed by a war. Having lived here, I very well understand how difficult it is to recover from the war. I’m working in a bank and I can tell you that over here a huge number of people is literally drowning in debts. If you don’t consider carefully all pros and cons of your loan and if you don’t plan carefully how to pay it back, you’re in a serious trouble.

When you take a loan, you’re not paying back only the sum you have taken – you have to pay interest on the loan as well. And if you live in a politicaly instable country - your interest will be HUGE. I believe that here in Bosnia we are doing much better than DRC; yet, our interest rates are enormous. It’s just that investors are not ready to risk to give their money in an instable area – they want huge pay off for their risk.

I think we can consider microloans as well, but only for some smaller amounts, not for the whole project, and not right away. Just imagine that something happens to the animals, something that is beyond of their control – such a risk always exists. How are they going to pay off the debts?

That’s why I always insist on starting small and gradually growing strong – so that they could avoid getting dependent. Beside saving groups, maybe they could try to involve people who already have goats, maybe to negotiate with them to pay them for insemination and to provide some food for the goats or to provide the work (that way they also could learn about how to take care of the animals) in exchange for a kid...
Just an idea...

We can combine all these methods, but I strongly believe that the community has to start now, to do whatever they can do for themselves. For their own sake.

I’d like to hear your comments guys.

Take care
Sonja