2 February 2010
Poor families are avoiding the clutches of loan sharks in Myanmar due to the success of a Tearfund food project.
Rural communities are getting help to feed themselves rather than rely on outside aid through the creation of rice banks.
Traditionally, many poorer residents in Nyaung Chaung village run out of food for a few months while they are waiting for their new crops to grow, forcing them to take out loans from moneylenders to buy supplies to avoid hunger.
One local, Daw Htoo Hpo, explained: ‘Due to the high interest rates, we were struggling under the debt. As a result sometimes we didn’t have extra money to send our children to school.’
To break the poverty-inducing cycle, Daw Htoo’s village, with help from a Tearfund partner, set up a rice bank where residents pool the surplus from their crops.
The rice bank acts like a community food redistribution system, tiding people over in the short term and then getting replenished when new crops come through.
Rice banks like this one are lifting people out of poverty. Photo: Sarah Dilloway/Tearfund
The ethos behind the bank is to share the success with all members of the community.
Daw Htoo said, ‘Establishing a rice bank is the most effective activity for helping needy people in our village. The first priority is to give to the poor and vulnerable such as widows and child-headed households.
‘Without the support of Tearfund we could not have achieved this kind of success because we wouldn’t have received the training needed, for example in development and book-keeping.’
Tearfund is also boosting agricultural production by improving the training of farmers.
U Phe Aung from Sa Kan Kyi village now knows how to create and use a bio-fertiliser called bocashi on his crops rather than a chemical one.
The result has been more food and less damage to the soil. U Phe said, ‘I realised it’s better for my family if I can plant different kinds of vegetables. Other farmers have been impressed and are following my methods.’