Mandate eNewsletter, 2009 - Issue No. 1

Economics of Reconciliation

Many leading economists believe that trust is essential for spurring economic growth. People will not lend money to people whom they do not trust to repay. People won’t get their cars fixed if they don’t trust the mechanic. People won’t save their money in banks if they don’t trust those banks to keep their money safe. In this light, it seems that economic growth would be impossible in a place like Rwanda. How can you trust the local shop owner who killed your wife and child with a machete?

In this light, it seems outrageous that the Archbishop of the Anglican Church of Rwanda (ACR), Emmanuel Kolini, would mandate that every congregation in his denomination should promote 2-3 savings and credit associations to minister to poor people in their churches and communities. These savings and credit associations (SCAs) can be thought of as very simple credit unions that are owned and operated by the poor members themselves. For the past decade, the Chalmers Center has been helping churches to promote these SCAs in order to minister holistically to poor people in their congregations and communities. The capital mobilized through the savings of the SCA members is used by the members to start their own microenterprises, to pay for medicine, and to cope with a variety of emergencies. The weekly meetings of the SCAs also provide opportunities for the SCA members—backed by their churches--to minister to one another’s spiritual and social needs through prayer, Bible study, singing, and fellowship.

Of course, one of the most important elements needed to make these SCAs work is that word again: trust. The SCA members need to trust one another to save and to lend their money to one another. Hence, it is difficult to imagine a more unlikely place in the world to launch an SCA initiative than post-genocide Rwanda, where machetes hacked trust to pieces.

However, the Archbishop was undaunted, and he asked Hope International, a partner of the Chalmers Center, to push the SCA project ahead. Hope then hired Mrs. Malu Garcia, one of the Chalmers Center’s Global Fellowship of Trainers (GFT), to train leaders of the ACR to equip their pastors, deacons, and lay leaders to promote SCAs in their communities. The GFT represents one of the Chalmers Center’s primary replication strategies. The Chalmers Center equips GFT members, who are volunteers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, to use Chalmers’ curricula, tools, and training methods to train churches to implement holistic, microfinance ministries. GFT members also help the Chalmers Center to develop, improve, and contextualize all of the Center’s models and training materials in light of their experiences.   

In fact, Malu began pilot testing church-centered SCAs with the Chalmers Center in her home country of the Philippines back in 2000, only one year after the Chalmers Center’s inception. Out of this experience she helped the Chalmers Center to develop its Handbook for Promoting Church-Centered Savings and Credit Associations. Malu took this handbook with her to Rwanda in 2008, had it contextualized and translated, and used it to equip lead trainers from the ACR to pursue the Archbishop’s dream.

In this video clip, Dr. Brian Fikkert, Executive Director of the Chalmers Center, interviews Malu Garcia about the incredible way that God is using the savings and credit associations of the Anglican Church of Rwanda to bring about the reconciliation needed to re-establish trust, economic prosperity, and more.

For more information about the Chalmers Center, visit us at www.chalmers.org.

6/16/09