SILC IS BACKBONE AND IMPORTANT COMPONENT TO CARITAS IMPLEMENTED PROJECTS

SILC (Savings and Internal Lending Communities) is a methodology developed by Catholic Relief Services in collaboration with Caritas and development department of Songea. The approach consists of forming voluntary groups of 20‐30 individuals within a village with the goal of enabling regular saving, providing opportunities for small loans to members, and providing a payout of shares at the end. In addition, each group sets up a social fund, which is available for members to access during emergencies (e.g. health crisis, funeral etc.). The approach is intended to be complementary to the production activities of the project, enabling participants to have access to funds (either through loans or payout during the critical production period). Financial training also carries over to household financial management, management of farmer groups, and marketing committees.

The inclusion of SILC in the projects relies on the following assumptions:
 Farm families will be able to mobilize sufficient savings to join a SILC group
 SILC groups will provide financing to member farmers, and
 Through SILC and other financial institutions, farmers will have access to resources to buy
agricultural inputs