Pageant Loans - Pageant supporting education in The Gambia

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Bakalarr Loan Scheme	Started October 2006
Sika Loan Scheme	Sika Women's Village Market started 2005
Gunjur Loan Scheme	Started October 2009
More schemes	Upcoming schemes in Gunjur and other villages
Loan scheme funding	How you can help

Pageant has been assisting a Women's Group in the Village of Busumbala by funding literacy and numeracy classes which help them run small businesses such as vegetable growing, tie dyeing and other craft products. However, at that stage, Pageant had not provided help in actually starting such businesses.

Over the past few years, many people in the world's poorest countries have benefited from so-called micro-loans, which enable them to set up their own small businesses. Micro-loans are offered to people who are too poor for normal banks to bother with. Though the start-up finance usually comes from outside, the micro-finance schemes are normally run by local committees, and the loans paid back by successful entrepreneurs are used to finance new loans. Micro-loans are a powerful instrument to lift third-world communities out of poverty. Micro-finance schemes operate in many countries of Africa, Asia and South America, but they are particularly common in rural South Africa, where many are coordinated by the Small Enterprise Foundation. Another example in South Africa is Women's Development Businesses (WDB), based on a successful scheme in Bangladesh. In Uganda, Village to Village Programs has achieved similar successes.

When Bakalarr headmaster, Bakary Gitteh, visited the UK in the summer of 2005, Pippa showed him a video describing a micro-loan scheme started by two lady missionaries in South Africa. Their idea was to lend a small sum of money - 1500 Dalasis* was ideal - to each of six ladies in a community, so that they could each start a small business. Each lady had to come up with a business idea that she felt she could manage and that would be supported by the community. (*At that time, 1500 Dalasis was equivalent to about £30, but exchange rates have fluctuated since. You can check current exchange rates here.)

Once it was agreed which ladies would get the loans, they were lent the money, interest free, for a period of six months. They had to agree to pay back one sixth - 250 Dalasis - each month, until at the end of six months all had been repaid. As long as ALL the money was repaid, it could then be lent out again, to six more ladies of the community - and so, it could be treated as community money, as long as it was always repaid.

Bakary was fascinated by the idea and had watched the video several times. The main drawback from Pageant's point of view was that it needed a local woman to be the go-between - a woman who commanded the respect of the local ladies and who could also talk to us and understand how the scheme was to work. A man would not do, so Kemo could not, in this instance, be our representative. Bakary said before he left that he thought that his wife, Mariama, might act as our go-between and he would discuss it with her. However, he had not mentioned it again, so we thought she had not been keen on the idea. We had also mentioned the scheme in a few places, but no-one had taken it up.

The Bakalarr scheme was started during Pageant's visit in October 2006, when a very large number of women crowded into one of the Bakalarr classrooms to hear the details of how Pageant loan worked from Pippa and Mariama.


Pippa and Mariama explaining how the scheme works to the assembled ladies

On her visit in February 2007, Pippa found that the first group in the Bakalarr scheme was just coming up to completion. Mariama assured Pippa that the women were all paying back the correct amount and on time. Currently (June 2009) the Bakalarr scheme is on its eighth group of women...

As it happened, the loan scheme at Sika, also coordinated by Mariama Gitteh, came into operation before the Bakalarr scheme...

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Sika Women's Village Market

One of the most successful and long running loan schemes is a village market run by the women of Sika on the North Bank. This was started with a Pageant loan in 2005, and is still doing very well. Pageant has now helped with funding for a new market place. The market is in use every morning and all the local women have the opportunity to trade each day. They say it has transformed their lives.

Read the full story of Sika Women's Village Market

the new market sign

Pageant has started a new loan scheme in the village of Gunjur [map] in the southern part of the Gambia. The Sheik Hatab Memorial Nursery School has an active "Mothers' Club" associated with it. On a Pageant visit in April 2009, members of the Mothers' Club said they were keen to participate in a Pageant Loan Scheme, and Pippa was introduced to Binta Jammeh, the Home Science teacher of Gunjur Upper Basic School, who agreed to be Pageant's go-between for the village women. In October 2009 an inaugural meeting was held and the loan scheme started.

The loan scheme will run on similar lines to those in other villages - i.e. Pageant is lending 1,500 Dalasis to each of six ladies, so that they can each start a small business. Each lady has come up with a business idea that she feels she can manage and that will be supported by the community. Pippa met a large group of ladies who were interested in the loan scheme. The go-between, Binta Jammeh, speaks excellent English and was able to translate between Pippa and the Gunjur ladies.

Having agreed that all the ladies would get support we gave out 1,500 Dalasis to each lady, who counted it and then signed or made her mark on the first page of the special book made for this loan scheme. Each month the ladies will return 250 dalasis to Binta and sign / mark the page again - when all the money has been returned (hopefully after six months) the money can be lent to six more ladies. The book has been made with 20 pages - if the loan scheme is still going after 20 groups we will give them another book!

Pageant is planning to extend its loan scheme to at least two more villages. What we need are other people like Mariama and Binta, who can be our go-between in each new village. It is important that this person is a female of local authority, who can both command the respect of the village women and be able to communicate well with us and understand how the scheme works. It takes time to find the right people, but they are well worth waiting for, as has been proved by Mariama.

Each loan scheme needs 1,500 dalasis for each of six women. At the rate of exchange of July 2009 this is equivalent to about £36 per woman, or £216 in total. (Check exchange rates here.) Each 'loan' becomes community money - Pageant does not expect to get it back, but hopes it will circulate within each community for some time, to benefit as many people as possible. If you would like to make a specific donation for such a 'loan', please send a cheque to Pippa Howard. Old School, Worthing Road, Southwater, Horsham, West Sussex. RH13 9DT, UK. Please write 'Pageant Loan' on the back of the cheque. Also if you are a UK taxpayer, please send us a GiftAid form to allow us to reclaim UK Tax. You can also donate online using your credit or debit card.