Communities have been advised to save and invest in income generating activities in order to improve their livelihoods.
Joseph Gama, District Community Development Officer for Blantyre gave the advice during a learning visit by members of Mulasa COMSIP Cluster from Ntata Village T/A Tombondiya in Mulanje district to Tikondane COMSIP Cluster in Khotopo village GVH Mang’omba in Blantyre.
Members of the two clusters are participants in the Climate Smart Enhanced Public Works Program who were mobilized into groups by COMSIP for improved livelihood through savings and investments.
Gama advised the members not to relent in their pursuit for improved standards of living as lives have already been transformed this far.
Gatonika Black, Community Facilitator for Tikondane Cluster said their lives have been transformed since the group was established in January this year.
“We are doing small scale businesses and earning enough money to afford basic needs and our savings are alsunityo growing. We were able to withstand the Cyclone Freddy shocks because we had income to repair the damages brought by heavy rains,” said Black
Meanwhile Mercy Kayuni, Development Communication Officer for COMSIP Corporative Union Limited said the aim of the visit was to enable members of the two clusters to learn and adopt the positives from each other in the implementation of the project.
“We mobilized participants in the CS EPWP into loans and savings groups so that the little they get from the program they can be able to save and invest in businesses so that they can grow the money and improve their livelihoods. In total we have 12,819 participants in Savings and Loan groups under the climate smart project,” said Kayuni
According to Kayuni, Tikondane Cluster which has 30 members has total savings of K1,587,600 while Mulasa Cluster which has 45 members has total savings of K1,051,000.
The Climate Smart Enhanced Public Works Programme is being implemented in all the 28 districts with 292,186 participants across the country, with over K3 billion Kwacha cumulative savings from 2022.
COMSIP is implementing a livelihoods component of the Social Support for Resilient Livelihoods Project, a Malawi government project with funding from the World Bank and the Multi-donor Trust Fund.