By Tikondane Vega
Lilongwe, March 5, Mana: Principal Social Welfare Officer for Zomba City Council Linda Matayataya Zinyongo has commended Community Savings and Investments Promotion (COMSIP) for uplifting lives of vulnerable people in the district.
Zinyongo said this on Wednesday when members of the Bwaila COMSIP Cluster visited Tidalirane Cluster in Chikanda as part of a learning visit in the same district.
Bwaila cluster was formed in March 2024 under the Livelihood programme, while Tidalirane cluster was formed in 2021 as a result of the Covid response.
Speaking during the learning visit, she said COMSIP has been providing basic livelihood training, enhancing productive skills, and graduating households into sustainable livelihoods to help people be resilient to climate shocks.
“This learning visit has also been organized by COMSIP so that the two groups can learn from each other; particularly Bwaila being a new cluster would like to know more on how Tidalirane has survived all these years.
“It is due to this reason that Zomba city now has 263 cluster groups with a capital of K186 million. This is happening because COMSIP continues to equip its members with different skills including business and financial management,” said Zinyongo.
Juliet Fraser, case worker for Bwaila COMSIP Cluster, described their visit to Tidalirane as an eye opener, saying members have been equipped with new skills, adding participants have learned more from the old group.
Fraser said,” This visit has provided us with opportunities for mutual learning through deep exploration of issues that have helped us to understand some of the challenging issues in our group. In this cluster, we are 53 in total, and we plan to share K10 million on the 30th April, 2025.
“We are a new group with less than a year in operation, but we have achieved a lot at a group as well as individual level. Members have bought livestock, are paying school fees for children and have managed to buy fertilizer this year.
On his part, Gasten Mwepesa, who is the Community Facilitator for Tidalirane Cluster, said they feel honoured that some more groups are coming forward to learn from them.
“This means we are doing something good. In the meantime, we have K31 million as our capital among 37 people who are members. We are planning to buy a maize mill as well as a Minibus in the future, but also at an individual level, people’s lives have improved,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mercy Chaluma, Communication Development Officer for COMSIP said she is satisfied with how COMSIP groups are performing, saying this is the reason her organization decided to facilitate the learning visit of the two groups as one way of building resilient skills.
