Jenda Yet Again

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

This morning Paolo, Gerald, and I headed to Jenda for a meeting at the branch located there.  The meeting was with the loan officers to discuss the faming project plan and the goals we hope to accomplish.  

The plan will begin with only five loan groups so we can work out all the problems before we get all the other groups we plan on working with on board.

I will write more on the farming project soon as I now have a better understanding but did not bring my paperwork with me.

Following, we had a meeting with the Project Manager of MALEZA (Malawi Enterprise Zone Associations).  MALEZA has three main foucuses: co-ops/agri business, natural resource management, and food security/nutrition.  MALEZA will be specifically utilizing their knowledge and expertise in co-ops/agri business to help us better serve our clients who are using their loans for farming.  After they met with a loan group and saw the crops they were growing, they expressed great excitement to begin work with MicroLoan and our clients.

Following the meeting I headed to the guesthouse and moved into the other one that I will be staying for the rest of my stay while in Malawi.  Tomorrow I have two meetings, one with a solar panel company and the other with a cellular phone company.  MicroLoan is working with the solar company to allow our clients to sell panels as a way for others to power a light in their village houses as a way to make money.  The cellular company, Esoko, allows sellers and buyers to use text to post crop stock and amounts they are looking to purchase in order to better connect our clients with buyers of crop.  This creates a more sustainable business model and gives our clients the best price available to sell to buyers.

I will be doing a separate report on Esoko in the coming days.  Stay tuned.

I am currently at a lodge in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, for our scheduled meetings tomorrow.  I will be back in Kasungu on Monday!

Regards

Jimmy

Market Outside of MLF Jenda Branch

Ten Different Groups Selling Tomatoes!
No wonder the price is so low!

Bean Selection at the Market