Traders open farmers’ community bank

TWENTY-five coffee farmers of the Apo Angra Angna Kange Coffee Cooperative’s Waigar Cluster Group have started a rural community bank in Mingaimugl village this week.
A delegation of American coffee traders who visited their cluster group was given the honour to open the bank.
Group member Goiye Andreas and John Penda helped the members go through the process of rural community banking as a demonstration for the visitors.
Andreas said they had 25 registered members who put in money every week in a welfare and savings and loans fund.
He said there were three separate locks to the safe with a key held by different people.
The safe is only opened when members are present to deposit their money or get loans.
“After making savings in the bank, we feel financially content, unlike in the past where when one of the family members was sick or in need of school fees, we went begging for money,” Andreas said.
“Today we just withdraw from our own savings in our village bank and meet our needs.”
The cooperative’s general-manager, Brian Kuglame, commended the 25 members of Waigar Cluster for their commitment to quickly adapt to the rural community banking system.
He said Waigar was the first cluster group under the cooperative to implement the community banking system.
Other clusters from Yonki, in Eastern Highlands, to the last cluster in Wara Kagul, in Western Highlands, will also have their own bank.
Kuglame said the bank gavemembers financial security in times of need.
American coffee traders Taylor Mork, Ben Heins (Crop to Cup Importers), Shannon Neffendorp (Oak Cliff Coffee Roasters) and Scott Pederson (True Coffee Roaster) were given the chance
to launch the rural community bank.