Kilimanjaro, TZ – Afya Bora Village Community Bank group receives first loan – 30 Sep 2022

Mary, manager of local social enterprise Lishe Bora presented Afya Bora VICOBA group with the group’s first loan. The group started on 24 January 2022 with eleven members who are assisting primary school children with growing vegetables and bananas for their their Grow-own-Breakfast. They are also earning income from their nutritional flour business, which they started with a capital of 79,000 TZS for making 26 Kgs of flour. They have now grown to making 50 Kgs of flour with capital of 150,000 TZS.

The group’s constitution commits its members to assisting each other and Lasso primary students because they want to assist children to eat breakfast every school day. The local social enterprise Lishe Bora has given the group and students organic gardening knowledge, so the group is now assisting Lasso primary school by volunteering twice per month for planting seedlings, laying mulch, and weeding seven garden beds.

The ten women and one man who is the chairman enjoy working together but they do face a challenge during the three month rainy season when they are unable to produce nutritional flour because they wash the ingredients and sun dry them. When it rains the ingredients do not fully dry, so there is a big possibility of spoilage. This means that they want to design an alternative method of preparing flour during the rainy season.

The group are also planning to create a recognizable brand name, so that they can print labels for selling in the stores, and continue to assist and educate the children of Lasso primary about vegetable farming so that other children can benefit from getting enough vegetables at school.