Dream home – savings and loans for permanent homes
‘The GSC has allowed me to escape poverty. Today, I can dream bigger.’
The Resilient Forests and Livelihoods programme, to which all your DOUBLED donations made through the Green Match Fund from 12pm GMT Tuesday 22 April to the moment we reached our target on Friday 25 April (thank you!) will go, works to protect the unique Malagasy environment, for the benefit of us all, while also improving lives and livelihoods, helping Malagasy people lift themselves from poverty and escape food shortage.
We’d like to introduce you to Noeline, a mother of three who used the opportunities given by RSF to lift herself and her husband from subsistence-level day labour for others, to become a business- and home-owner.
An MfM project in the Resilient Forests and Livelihoods programme has enabled one family to ‘make their dreams come true’ – building and owning a permanent family home.
Noeline Ravaoarimalala, 34, is a farmer and mother of three. She lives in PK7, in Andasibe, where the Mitsinjo Association has been working as a Money for Madagascar partner for the last decade.
In 2022, as part of the RSF programme, we launched a Community Savings Group (CSG) in her village: a savings and loan organisation, in which the community itself invests money, chooses projects to support, and benefits from those projects’ success.
Noeline was a founder member, and as she explains, her life at that point was hard. She said: ‘Me and my husband survived by working each day in fields belonging to wealthier families. We only had enough money to cover our daily food needs. We were anxious every day in case something happened that would require or cost money. We couldn’t possibly afford it.’
In 2022-23, the CSG had 24 members including Noeline (23 women, one man), and had a minimum weekly membership fee of 300 Ariary (5.1p Sterling).
After nine months in which she saved her share of the profit the CSG-supported projects made, she accumulated 130,000 Ariary (£22.05), with which she bought rice, which she was then able to sell on for 240,000 Ariary (£40.71: 79.9 per cent of Malagasy people live on less than £1.73 per day).
She said: ‘My husband and I used this money to start a dream. A thing we never thought would be possible. We started to build our own permanent home.’
Noeline continued to take part in the CSG in 2023-24, when the group had 30 members (28 women, two men), and a weekly membership fee of 500 Ariary (8.5p). This time, she received 170,000 Ariary (£28.84), which she invested in buying gold, which could be sold for twice the price she paid.
She saved what she earnt, and she and her husband continued to build their house.
Today, she is still a member of the GSC, paying a membership fee of 800 Ariary (14.1p) each week. The increased amount from each member is a reflection of their earnings through the scheme, and enables the group to invest more in the projects it backs.
Her house is built, and she plans to move in, with her husband and three children, this month (April 2025). She has 1.5m Ariary (£254.43) and is preparing to open a savings account at the Adasibe post office.
She said: ‘Thanks to my savings, I’ve been able to make my dreams come true.
‘Since joining the group, I’m no longer short of money and I can meet my family’s needs. The GSC is a real solution to our daily problems, and I’m proud to be part of it.
‘I thank Mitsinjo for choosing us as beneficiaries of this project. I hope to go even further in achieving my goals.
‘I can say that the GSC has allowed me to escape poverty. Today, I can dream bigger.’
Our Resilient Forests and Livelihoods programme works to give Malagasy people like Noeline the training, advice, support and tools they need to lift themselves from poverty and food shortage (79.9 per cent of Malagasy people live on or below the global poverty baseline of £1.73 per week; 80 per cent gain all their access to food from farming, including subsistence farming, and 50 per cent of Malagasy children suffer stunting due to malnourishment).
It also works to give those people what they need to protect and expand the vibrant, spectacular Malagasy rainforests on which we all rely.
And you can help us.
As noted, we already achieved our Green Match Fund target – thank you so much!
But if you still want to donate to the RFL programme, please do so here: your donation will be very gratefully received and will help Malagasy people lift themselves from poverty and hunger, and protect and expand the Malagasy rainforest, upon which we all rely.
Your donation will benefit:
Malagasy people who deserve as we all do to live in reasonable comfort, free from risk of malnutrition and harm: your donation will help us provide the platform from which they can increase their incomes, produce the food they need, and develop and manage their own initiatives and ideas. You will help change lives, absolutely for the better
The Malagasy rainforest and all the animals and plants within it (the Malagasy wilderness contains five per cent of all the world’s species of flora and fauna: 80 per cent of those are found nowhere else on the planet): your donation will give Malagasy people the means to protect and expand the forests, and safeguard the animals and plants it contains and supports
Everyone: the world relies on its forests. That includes all of us. Even if we did not have a moral responsibility to protect – or at least not be responsible for harming – the living things with which we share the planet, our rainforests provide air we breathe and are central to our hopes and efforts to reduce and mitigate the impacts of climate change. Your work and generosity will, in this way, benefit every person – every living thing – on Earth
Thank you!
Thanks so much for reading, and please help us give Malagasy people the platform they need to improve their lives and health, and protect and promote the magnificent ecosystem in which they live, and on which we all rely.
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In 2022-23, the CSG had 24 members including Noeline (23 women, one man), and had a minimum weekly membership fee of 300 Ariary (5.1p Sterling).
Her house is built, and she plans to move in, with her husband and three children, this month (April 2025). She has 1.5m Ariary (£254.43) and is preparing to open a savings account at the Adasibe post office.
