Tanzania, Moshi Urban: Kilimanjaro Vicoba Network (KIVINET)

The Kilimanjaro VICOBA Network (KIVINET) supports the Village Community Banks (VICOBA) within the Kilimanjaro region of northern Tanzania. Currently, KIVINET supports over 500 active VICOBA groups with around 15,000 members in total.
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KIVINET's objective is to help facilitate the main activities within the VICOBA groups while offering administrative support. Each VICOBA group is made up of about 30 members who choose 9 leaders amongst themselves to manage day-to-day activities

The laptops will be used to support the collaboration and the training of the Village Community Banks, the coordinators, the trainers, the leaders and the members with the objective of providing microcredit and social/medical insurance to more people in the whole Kilimanjaro region.
Most of the members, trainers and leaders are young entrepreneurs, who just started to build up a own small-scale business. The youth is trained trained with basic entrepreneurial skills, the usage of computer and modern bookkeeping software by the older ones.

For the youth and especially young women living in remote areas, building a own small-scale business is the only way to escape their poverty. Additionally, helping sustainable small businesses to grow will benefit the village community as a whole as it enables entrepreneurs to provide paid employment.
To achieve these goals KIVINET provides the structure for the Village Community Banks and all the training for free. The trainings are held by older members voluntarily.
At the moment there is need for training in leadership, bookkeeping software and entrepreneurship for more than 15000 people in total. Between the trainings the laptops do not remain unused, since they will also help to improve communication between the coordinators and the headquarter. This changes on Kivinets procedures will certainly have a positive effect on the youth.

For more imformation, please visit our website www.kivinet.wixsite.com/vicoba