Mme. La Directrisse is speaking about ADRIA, a non government organization which helps children, supports farmers and gives micro credits. ADRIA started 1995 – now 14 years later – they are ready to expand their activities to other rural and very poor areas in Benin, like Massi. They will open a branch there and give micro loans to farmers … Here is what Mme. Abiba has to say and please help her … The video is in french.
Here is the text in English:
Hello,
my name is Abiba, I’m the director of the OMG ADRIA (association for rural development to insert autopromotion)
The centre of the OMG is located in the North/West of Benin (closed to the Togo’s border), in the Donga department, in the commune of Assila. The town is called Aledjo.
The OMG ADRIA has been created in 1995. It was created to help women.
The main goal is to improve the conditions of the household, which is run by women.
We organise activities, in order to improve the economic level of women.
Women are the pillar of the family, they are responsible for the education of their children.
In Africa, women are having many children and their education is a big charge for them.
Unfortunately, they leave the countryside and we notice an important rural depopulation.
There is also many traffics of children, who must do some forced work.
In order to reduce that, we want to insert the micro-finance to help women staying in their surroundings, where they’re already working. If they stay where they live, they have the possibility to work more and raise their income, so that they can afford the children’s education.
How much is the micro-finance for a woman ?
She get at least 50 000. We started with 20 000, but today women are forming some well organised groups. Inside those groups is a president, a secretary and a treasurer. Together, they work, use the credit and pay it back. When the credit is expended, then they ask for some more credit.
Do Women pay something to ADRIA ?
Since 10 years, we have been doing micro-finance.
It’s not easy for everybody, but 90% of women get to pay back without problem.
How much is the rate ?
1%, which is 12% a year.
We supervise more than 1000 women brought together into 99 groups.
What does ADRIA need ?
Thanks to micro-finance, women’s income is raising up, but there is still the problem of children’s education. When the school starts, women are having difficulties to pay all the school’s furniture (notebooks, pencils, uniforms…) and pay back the credit at the same time.
Also, we suggest a school-credit for women. This way, they can pay the different purchases or needs for the children when they go to school.
ADRIA proposes a school-credit, which has to be paid back into the next 6 months Since the harvest start 3 or 4 months after the beginning of school, they get enough money to pay back the school-credit. If they sell the harvest little by little, they can easily pay back the school-credit.
When we started 2 years ago, we had 5 300 000.
Last year, we had 13 000 000.
Today, we have lots of members, because people realise that education is fundamental.
We started with 300 members ; today we are more than 800 and we will reach 1000 members .
What can do someone who wants to help ?
They are different things :
First, there is the possibility to support financially the OMG to raise up the school-credit fund.
Second of all, there is the possibility to lend money to the OMG to raise up the school-credit fund with a special agreement of payment for this credit.
There is 8 % interest (after 8 months paying back)
It gives a chance to lots of children, who can not afford a schooling (because they don’t have parents, or not enough money)
With this credit, we can sponsor children who don’t have anybody to pay their education.
What else does ADRIA need ?
We need vehicles. We have some partners, who come regularly to visit the OMG and see all what we are doing. When they arrive in Cotonou, we have difficulties to make them come to our place.
If we want to bring our occupations to fruition, we need to move to different places (villages), which are far away sometimes. For example, Massi is around 400 km far away from us. We need a car to get there.
We also have some partners in our area, but they still can be 100 km far away.
To work properly, we need a car, and right now, we’re missing one.
