VILLAGE SAVING AND LOAN ASSOCIA TION CHANGES THE LIFE OF REGINA  LUBALA OF CHIBOZU

"A 51-year-old Regina Lubala of Chibozu community joined the Intanda project implemented by Care Zambia in July 2023. She has four children aged 10,9,8,6 and 3years. These children are in grade 6,4,2,1 respectively and one child is transitioning to pre-school after undergoing child stimulation under the project. Regina is a member of a parenting group where she has been receiving child stimulation lessons and is also a member of the Village Saving and Loan Association group where she has been actively saving. "Before I joined the VSLA group, as a family we had challenges talking children to school, feeding the family, clothing as we only depended on rain feed farming as our only source of income”. Said Regina. Regina started saving in July,2023 and during their first share out she got K2,600 and decided to buy four goats for resale and the other money was used to buy school uniforms for her children, books, shoes and other house needs. Her second share out was K3,200 that she invested in goat and chicken business that she supplies to Lusaka market. ‘ In my first share out I received K2,600 as my share, I decided to invest part of the money into goats business and part of the money I decided to buy school needs for my children. I bought uniforms, books,shoes and school bags. In my second share out I received k3,200 and because my goat and chicken business was going on very well. I decided to add on the capital of my business. I currently supply 10 goats and 30 village chicken to Lusaka market biweekly and each trip I sell about K7,000 on average. While the drought caused hunger for most households, for my family we saw a business opportunity as there was so much demands for food and we supplied biweekly goats and chickens to be market.” Said Regina.“Despite the hunger situation, my family had food, we managed to take our children to school. We 
plan to grow our goat business even more so that we can raise enough capital to buy cattle so that it can also help us in increasing field crop production for food and cash groups to support our 
family and educate our children.” Said Regina.