Today, after few
months of works we finally opened the new Union Bank in Ngaoundaye, 220 Km
north of Bozoum, close to the border with Cameroun and Ciad.
Back
in 1992, Dr Ione (legendary
character here: she’s from Italy but living in Central African Repubblic since
1970)went to Bangui to exchange Ngaoundaye farmers’ savings.
Often people hide
their savings at home and mice, termites or fire are destroying them.
Unfortunately the Central Bank refused to exchange them.
Therefore she and
some other people came up with a plan in order to keep the savings in a safe
location. They enquired at the same organization that opened “Credits Mutuels”
(union banks) however they weren’t able to work outside the capital or the big
cities….
So the only option left
was to open a small Union bank called Credit Mutuel Villageois di
Ngaundaye.
Slowly it grew and
started to allocate small loans. In january this year it had
about 22.500 euro as mutual savings, with more than 160 holder
members.
Now a UE found and
with the support of a Danish ONG (DRC) we were finally able to build the new
Union Bank in Ngaundaye, which is the following step of the former one.
All of this develop the Mutual Saving and Credit Bank of Bozoum, located inBozoum and has 4 branches (Bozoum, Ndim,
Koui e Ngaundaye).
Why opening a bank?
I was actually thinking about that this morning….And it made
me think of The Parable of the Talents: a man who is preparing to leave on a
journey entrusts his possessions to each servants, apportioned to them on the
basis of their abilities.
Once he returns, finds who invested and multiplied by 100%
and who
dug a hole in the ground and buried his master’s money. Lord
reproaches him for not investing the money and being able to give back withinterests…
Money is a tool that can be really evil but also that can do
a great deal of good. It can make people live in dignity being able to provide
for themselves and their families…
It can be used selfishly, and only bring cold and sadness
but it can be donated and give back joy and warmth…
