Battambang, KH – Savings program helps GP’s child ride to school – 1 Jan 2015

GP used savings to buy a bicycle for his eldest daughter so that she can get to school, which is located 7 km away, and still have plenty of energy to concentrate on her classes.

In 2015, Healthy Life Garden Shop implemented two savings programs for its employees. The first savings is deducted directly from their pay and can be issued every six months. For the first half of the year GP used his savings of US$72 to buy the bicycle for his daughter.

The second savings program is based off of a rotating savings group model. Each member of the group, in this case six members, puts in US$5 every two weeks, which totals US$30. They then alternate every two weeks who receives the US$30 savings. Every time that the cycle rotates to GP, he has been putting aside money to improve his home.

Savings programs like these are important to developing countries because it teaches people that they can achieve their goals without any outside help and means that they won’t have to take high interest loans from organizations just looking to make a profit off of them.