VICOBA leadership training in Mshangai and Kamngobole

Tuesday 21^st and Thursday 29^th of September, YPM held VICOBA trainings in Mshangai and Kamngobole for leaders from twenty three different VICOBA-groups around the area.

Secretaries, discipline masters, treasures and chair persons met to report and share experiences from their VICOBA groups, and get professional input from head office. The aim of the meeting was to discuss several themes on VICOBA, to make sure our leaders feel supported and return to their communities even more confident and knowledgeable than before. Strong leaders are necessary build strong and durable VICOBA groups, and represent important figures in community development.

A leader should always be elected from members within the group. One of his or hers main responsibilities is to be a positive motivator and empower others to save more. A successful leaders is one that sees that others succeeds. But leadership is also about making sure that the rules are followed and the VICOBA members pay their shares and fines according to the law of the group. VICOBA does not permit losses. This is the communities money, and trust is needed for the system to work. Each VICOBA group should have a constitution which help govern their activities, and leaders may refer to this in case of disagreements on eg. payment of fines. It is important that leaders upheld a strict, but fair, line on deadlines for payments of VICOBA money, and go in front as good examples themselves.

It is important that leaders upheld a strict, but fair, line on deadlines for payments of VICOBA money, and go in front as good examples themselves.

The training in Mshangai also gave to thirteen groups chance to present themselves, and their achievements this far. Some groups had started only recently, and only gathered some hundred thousands shillings, but most groups were between 25-40 members and had collected from 2 million to 4 million shillings. One group had even managed to collect more than 6 million. Most of the groups reported meeting the same challenges: members who used to long time to return loans, and lack of facilities to run group projects. Most of the groups had tree planting projects, or other small group businesses.

YMP are grateful for all the good work done around in the villages, especially by the group leaders, who volunteer of their time to run our projects. You are indispensable to our work, and real makers of changers in the lives of your neighbors, friends and families.