First Lady Laura Bush Visits WORTH group in Zambia

Last week a rural WORTH group outside Lusaka, Zambia hosted Mrs. Laura Bush at a gathering of their village bank members on June 28, 2007.   The women were eager to show Mrs. Bush not only how they manage the operations of their bank, but how funds are invested in micro-enterprises that they also manage themselves. As the owners and members, they save together, make loans to one another, manage the accounting and distribute the interest on their loans back to group members, while also learning basic literacy and entrepreneurial business skills. The WORTH women told Mrs. Bush about their pride as successful bankers and business women and the difference that the additional income from their banking and small businesses makes to their families.

Visiting both the Tufune WORTH group and a local market where many of the group members are engaged in small business ventures, Mrs. Bush observed the ingenuity and success of these “micro-enterprise projects, where women are able to take care of themselves, support themselves -- many of them are widows -- because of loans that they make to each other” as she noted that evening during an exchange with Zambian First Lady Maureen Mwanawasa.

In Zambia the WORTH program targets HIV-affected communities and specifically works with caretakers of orphans, people living with HIV/AIDS and other vulnerable populations. Mrs. Bush mentioned the benefits of integrating HIV prevention with WORTH’s multifaceted approach for women by “empowering them to provide for themselves and their families”, which is of particular importance in HIV-affected communities.

“We are thrilled that Mrs. Bush was able to see a WORTH group on her brief visit to Zambia. Village banking has become an important strategy in combating HIV/AIDS, which rapidly drains the resources that families have when illness strikes” says Marcia Odell, long-time Director of WORTH, who accompanied Mrs. Bush on her visit to the Tufune WORTH group. “When women discover their own innate abilities to succeed at business and accumulate wealth, they also take on leadership roles in their communities and everyone benefits,” Odell stated.

Among the women Mrs. Bush met was Emelda Nyangu, chairperson of the Tufune WORTH Group. When Ms. Nyangu, a widow, first heard of WORTH she was most attracted to the program by the opportunity to learn to read and write.  She also recognized the benefits of the basic accounting and entrepreneurial skills that WORTH promotes for starting a business that would help her care for her own five children and her four nieces and nephews who were orphaned when their parents died of AIDS.  Today Ms. Nyangu is literate and runs a profitable business selling fish door-to-door and in the local market. The Tufune group is currently educating the community about HIV/AIDS, lobbying to abolish early marriage and has stopped domestic violence in members’ households through informal counseling of offenders. The dream of the Tufune group is to be able to build a school in the community to serve the needs of children and young people through grade 12, buy a mill to grind maize commercially and drill a borehole to offset current water shortages.