Village Savings & Loan Project Bringing Economic Empowerment to Over 2,700 Ugandan Villagers is Graded and Strengthened to Expand

The Uganda Village Savings & Loan (VSL) Evaluation Project was funded by a District 5020 Community Grant (DCG 2352) from March to June 2024. Michael Camp, the Chair of the Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island (RCBI) World Community Service committee and Grant Writer Vicki Evans facilitated the hiring of a VSL professional auditor to perform the evaluation and make recommendations for improvements.

Three years ago, RCBI, the Rotary Club of Kyoga Basin Uganda, and a Ugandan NGO named AWIGOE began training groups of 25-30 villagers in the Amolatar region to form VSL associations. Members were trained in how to save money weekly, secure it in a cash box, do record keeping, and begin making entrepreneurial loans to each other. After a year of training, each group becomes self-sufficient. They do an annual “share out” with a 20% return on savings and members can take up to three loans per year. This village banking system results in villagers boosting their revenue from micro-enterprises by two or three times.

This evaluation project entailed the professional auditor assessing 20 representative groups for how well they follow the VSL manual, run their VSL group, keep records, distribute loans, and how well the groups were trained by AWIGOE staff. The project made these findings:

• Graded the quality of each group in terms of its formation and effectiveness of its constitution, leadership, procedures, record keeping, member loans, social/emergency fund, business/education fund, and share outs.
• Attendance was excellent with more than 90% across the board.
• Women made up 67% of members and leaders in the groups.
• The survival rate after “graduation” and becoming self-sufficient is over 95%.
• 70% of groups had Good or Excellent overall grades (80’s and 90’s).
• 30% of groups need some form of supplemental training.

Recommendations include:

• Retrain all Village Agents (Junior Trainers). VAs should work 4 months in the field before being certified. Refer to details of grades to see areas needed for retraining.
• Include content on data collection and the use of the online MIS (Management Information System) used in the wider VSL community in training of VAs and Field Officers (Senior Trainers).
• Create a uniform Passbook as the primary record of all transactions rather than the two different varieties used, which causes overwork and confusion.
• Form executive committees to create and oversee operational best practices for the groups.
• Establish a traditional microfinance loan fund for group members to access to obtain larger loans outside the VSL system. Provide training in this type of loan management.

Ann Marie Kimball had a worldwide career and reputation before joining our Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island. She graduated from Stanford University with a Bachelor of Science in Biology in 1972 and received a Medical Degree at the University of Washington (UW) in 1976 with the high honor of being elected to the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. She trained in internal medicine at UW and went on to get a Masters in Public Health and Communicable Medicine there in 1981. She is currently a professor emeritus at UW in the department of Epidemiology. She has published 61 articles, 7 of which since 2017. She is famous enough to have a three-page layout in Wikipedia: “Kimball's research on global trade and emerging infections has earned her a Fulbright New Century Scholars Award and a Guggenheim Scholars Award. She is the author of two books: Risky Trade: Infectious Diseases in an Era of Global Trade, and Risks and Challenges in Medical Tourism. She has also done extensive media work with television, radio, and the press. Kimball brought important innovations to international infectious disease surveillance through the founding of the APEC Emerging Infections network advanced electronic disease surveillance and networking in the Asia Pacific.”

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All Bainbridge Island schools have approximately 16 weeks per year of breaks. During these breaks, food from schools are no longer available to students. Rotary, in partnership with Helpline House, provides a weekly meal bag to any Bainbridge youth (ages 0-18) in need. The Rotary Youth Food Committee is now preparing for the upcoming 2024 Summer Break. Beginning the week of June 17th and going through the week of September 2nd, these meal bags will be available at Helpline. Each bag contains food for approximately 1 week for one young person. Starting this Summer we are calling them “Kids' Pantry Bags” to more closely align with Helplines website. Helpline is also working to get more of these youth signed up at Helpline so they may receive more benefits than just food.  

The Youth Food Committee currently has enough dedicated volunteers to advertise these bags throughout the community, order food, pick it up from Safeway and deliver to Helpline as well as to deliver to youngsters/families unable to pick up the food bags. Thanks goes to: Pat Callan, Lee Evans, Toby Miller, Craig Nelson, Paul Tice, Bob Yaeger for all they do to make this possible.

In 2017, when three Rotarians from Bainbridge Island Rotary Club visited the Kumi area of Northern Uganda and met with the Kumi Rotary Club members, our relationship with this club began. At this meeting, the Bainbridge Island Rotarians learned about the need for girls’ menstrual products, for education using these, and for the need to provide and support basic family health day clinics. Since 2018, the two clubs have worked together to resolve these needs.

Community Grant Project (DCG#2319) was implemented in 2 stages:

1. Family Health days were held January 19 & 20th 2024.
2. The Girls Project, titled Girls with Dignity, was held February 15, 2024.

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The Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island is pleased to announce 35 Community Grant Awards! The grant amounts range from $750 to $15,000, and support a wide array of nonprofit programs and services on Bainbridge as well as other areas in Kitsap County.

Funding decisions were concluded in March, after careful deliberations by a 22-person team of Rotarians. A list of recipient organizations, and the grant purpose for each, can be found here: www.bainbridgeislandrotary.org/grant-awards/.

This year’s budget was $205,000, which reflects about one-third of the net revenue from our 2023 Rotary Auction & Rummage Sale. Whether you donate items, volunteer, sponsor the event, or shop at the Rotary Auction & Rummage Sale, your support is important and appreciated.

Together we are building a safer, healthier, and more vibrant community!

Rotary Youth Food Committee Update: During the week of April 1st through 5th, schools on the island were closed for Spring Break, and so meal bags for youngsters in need of food were again distributed by Helpline House. The Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island purchases food for these bags based on a menu created by the Helpline Food Bank Manager. Rotarians also distributed meal bags to those who could not pick them up at Helpline.

We have had an increase in the number of children needing food. Helpline is working with BISD to sign up as many of these students as possible, and has also started a separate account whereby staff can pick up food during the school year to give to students to take home. Please know how much this food means to these youngsters.

Governor Jay Inslee visited our Club this week, and it was a pleasure and an honor to host him. In fact, he was named an associate member of the Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island in 2006, so we were delighted to welcome him home. He graciously took questions from our members about the ferry system, climate, school funding, health care and other issues. We are deeply grateful to his staff for their generous efforts to assure the visit. His wife, Trudi was also welcomed. As a Bainbridge Islander, our Governor represents us proudly as the longest serving Governor in the country.

Last week the Board finalized the portfolio of funding from our large grants committee for this Rotary Year. Our Huney committee is named for charter member Judd Huney and awards grants over $25,000.

The recipients are:

• Helpline House capital project $125,000
• Bainbridge Community Tennis Association tennis at Sakai project $50,000
• Finch Green low income housing project $100,000
• Bainbridge Island Japanese American Exclusion Memorial Association $100,000 for a visitor’s center.