Muzungu nowhere near Kasungu

Despite now being back in slightly more chilly and grey England, the Social Performance Management work we're doing continues unabated. Chikonzero (or Chiko to his friends and colleagues) is working incredibly hard on all sorts of projects: making sure that the Progress out of Poverty Index (measuring clients’ poverty likelihood) pre-implementation work is going well and preparing for roll out across the Central Region, putting in place pilots testing new products aimed at reaching the most poorest and providing a longer repayment period to fit in with clients’ business schedules, documenting MicroLoan’s training best practice…etc.

Training in practice

On the subject of training, we’re going to be integrating a different training methodology for our clients. Loan Officers will be taught to use the ‘adult learning approach’, which is designed to help clients with limited formal education to learn more effectively. Before that can happen though Chiko’s been speaking to our star training Branch Managers and observing them at work training the groups. We’ll pull together all the best bits from our current in-house training as well as looking at the way other organisations across the globe do their training to develop a new and improved training programme, helping our clients to become even more effective businesswomen. We’re hoping that we can start piloting this very early in the new year.

Above is a picture of one of our Branch Managers working with a group. One of the exercises he has developed which highlights that clients need to know each other well before forming a group is to ask each woman to add a chitenje (cloth worn as a skirt) to a pile. Each potential client has to then give one chitenje back to another potential client, demonstrating that they know each other and recognise each other’s possessions. These kinds of practical exercises are part of the adult learning approach and ensure that lessons are more easily understood and remembered by clients.