Now I can manage my own life

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Mr. Bounpheng, farmer in Laos, gives a glimpse inside his life. I am a farmer. Every day I am going to the farm. I do not know how to manage my money. Each day I have a small amount of money that I can use to support my family. I am not thinking of tomorrow and the day after. I have never managed my finance for life.

A commercial bank knows how to manage the money for people, but often they have no strong insurance for members and an education system to transfer the knowledge to people who do not know to write for example. Then it is difficult for people to connect to the bank. They do not know how to save money or how to loan money. They will never know how to manage their life.

When the government came to see the situation in my village they went to talk with the chief of village, who is a person that is very close to us and knows how to speak our language. The chief of village is like a father to us. Every time he gives suggestions to improve our lives and hears the individual problems of village people.

The government analyzed the situation in my village and decided to support the village with a fund. They created a village development fund where people could loan money to manage their own lives and improve the village. Every time the chief of village explained the program to us and explained people how to save, how to manage your money and how to collect day by day.

They explained  it very slowly, step by step. So we felt very comfortable. The chief of village created trust. He used easy wording and was not very strict to us. It is not a like a big investment, but we know how to put small amounts. We have our own bank. Normally only rich people have money in the bank, but now also poor people have money in the bank. We feel independent and comfortable.

Cooperation is a very important element. We can share one idea, one cooperation, one decision.

If we compare with the time before the establishment of the Savings and Credit Union (SCU), we now know that we can grow a tree by ourselves, but we can also cooperate and each person can support their part and have the same life and same vision for future life.

If we have very few money, than we still have a chance to loan a small amount to the SCU that we can share to support any family member that has an emergency or help your family to do a small business, make a small enterprise.

The SCU knows how to manage your money, how much you have collect in one day and how much you collect in a year. For example: if we did not have a SCU nowadays, we still would do our general rural life but would never really think about our future. With the SCU we can plan what we are going to do with our money and compare our financials with our own economic situation.

So why did I become a member? I have a chance to make a decision, to work in cooperation, where we can exchange open-minded ideas and to change my economic situation. I can be part of a big cooperation with millions and millions of ideas.  From all the million ideas, one can be very powerful to grow bigger and stronger.

Why do I want to support the SCU forever and invite new members that have never heard about it before to join to also become a member? Because we want to see the future. We want to know what we can do to be able to change our poor education and poor economics to the same level as that of the rich people. That is our plan.