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Title: | Rotating Credit Associations: Their Formation and Use by Poverty-Stricken African Women in Rhini, Grahamstown, Eastern Cape |
Author: | Buijs, Gina |
Year: | 2002 |
Periodical: | Africanus |
Volume: | 32 |
Issue: | 1 |
Pages: | 27-42 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | South Africa |
Subjects: | self-help associations commercial banks women informal savings and credit associations Development and Technology Economics and Trade Women's Issues organizations economics Labor and Employment |
Abstract: | This article presents the research results of a project which investigated the role of rotating credit associations (RCAs) and other forms of voluntary savings schemes in assisting African people (mostly women) in poverty-stricken circumstances to provide for themselves and their families. The Eastern Cape, in which the project area of Rhini, Grahamstown, is situated, is among the poorest provinces in South Africa, with current estimates of unemployment running at over 65 percent. In these circumstances RCAs and other forms of savings schemes help poor women to make the most of what little resources they have. At the same time RCAs function as networking organizations where these women are able to make contacts who can assist them in joining business organizations such as Ilingelethu. The success of the organizations is due in no small measure to their tight-knit membership and values of honesty and trustworthiness. Members pride themselves on caring for one another and apart from the social aspects of the meetings, they also offer financial and practical assistance to bereaved families of members and in this way perform some of the functions of burial societies. The scarcity of waged employment in South Africa has meant that poor women, especially female heads of households, have created niches in the informal sector, buying and selling goods, to enable them and their dependants to survive. Membership of a RCA is a vital link in this process. Bibliogr., notes, ref. |