More than 30 women from Koela village in South Savo have successfully completed a two days training on Financial Literacy, last week.
Report reaching Sunday star said they also set up a Koela Women’s Savings Club last week.
Savo is an Island closest to the capital city, but access to financial institutions are lacking for various reasons.
The report identified that most of the women are not educated, do not have a formal job and financial institutions because certain requirement in order to open bank accounts.
Report revealed that most of the members being mothers get their source of income from selling fruits and vegetables at the Honiara Central market.
It also stated that Savo Island is blessed to have a very fertile soil for fruits, such as water melon, orange, local apples and cassava and yam, which are some of the locally grown healthy food produced on the volcanic Island.
The training was conducted by Ms. Marisa Pepa whose father is from Koela Village.
She said in an interview that seeing her sisters, aunties and grandmothers toil the land year in and year out with nothing to show breaks her heart.
Hence, she wanted to help them save some of their hard earned money by conducting the training.
Ms. Marisa said she knew very little of what financial literacy is but with the support from staff from Live and Learn, advise from Mr. Wally Provan who has had experience in running savings club trainings for groups in North West Choiseul, had enable her to give the women the basics.
She also confirmed support from likeminded people from Savo who help her initiative and also confirms receiving support from Member of Parliament (MP) for Savo Russel Dickson Mua.
Marisa said she was very happy therefore thanked Mua for seeing the need to improve lives of people in the constituency, as she looks forward to the continued support.
The women were very happy and speaking to the vice president of the Koela Women’s Savings Club Mrs. Susan Parua said she is very grateful as a mother that she can now finally save for her children.
She said that she wants to see this as not only economically empowering but also giving women the opportunity to build their confidence and capacity building.
The two days training covers sessions on;
· Community Awareness
· Why Should We Budget?
· How to Draw Up Family Budget
· Why should we save?
· How can we save?
· Setting up Savings Club
The savings club model was adopted from the Live and Learn Model called the Tugeda Tude Fo Tumoro which was introduced in Solomon Islands in 2009.
Ms. Pepa stated that we cannot just sit around and wait for development to come to our villages, some simple things can be facilitated by individuals like us working in the government and private sector that have access to this information either online or through government offices that we walk by each day.
“Together we can make Solomon Islands a better place for everyone,” she assured.
She was indeed impressed and touches the heart of the Koela Community and especially the families of the women themselves.
By LESLEY SANGA
