The group meets once a week for six weeks to learn about simple business practices, nutrition and health, stewardship, and how the bank will operate. With the loan some members might purchase flour, oil, and yeast in quantity to begin a bread-baking business. Or, a member might purchase fresh fish to sell in the market, or food staples, or charcoal to sell along the roadside. 46 years is the average life expectancy. Step 4 Each week for 16 weeks members meet to make a loan repayment.
Members pay interest at half the commercial rate.
Step 5 When all the loans are repaid, members are eligible for another loan this time equal to the amount they received in the first cycle plus whatever amount they have put into their personal savings account. In the past three years World Relief has provided more than 5,000 loans to Mozambican families. Fifty dollars doesn t sound like much to us. Early in the morning the husband and wife mixed flour, water, oil, and yeast in a large galvanized tub. After letting the dough rise for a couple hours the woman took the dough into her mud hut, kneaded it on a piece of white canvas, and shaped it into 120 small loaves which she arranged onto pans.