COTONOU, Benin (Mennonite Mission Network) – It took the death of a child to create a community bank that brings more abundant life to many people in Benin.
Christiane Dovi* is one of these people. A woman in her mid-50s and living alone, she has been a PEBCo client for many years. PEBCo, an acronym for Promotion d’Epargne-crédit à Base Communautaire (Promotion of Community–Based Savings and Loans) was born in 1996 with a $1,000 grant from Mennonite Board of Missions, a predecessor agency of Mennonite Mission Network.
Download full-resolution image.Dovi gets up early six mornings a week to make sorghum porridge that she sells from a container carried on her head. She makes the rounds to schools and places by the main road where business people and civil servants are waiting to catch zemi-djans, motorcycle-taxis, to their places of employment. Dovi serves as the Beninese version of Starbucks, a way to grab breakfast on the run.
Dovi says that she is grateful for PEBCo, a safe place to keep the money she is saving to build an indoor bathroom and shower. She knows that as she ages it will be harder to draw water from a well and carry it to her home for hygiene purposes.
In the early years of Mennonite Board of Missions partnership with the churches of Benin, Bethesda Hospital supported a program that trained primary healthcare workers in congregations. After a year of learning about topics such as nutrition, malaria, intestinal worms, and the importance of clean drinking water, medical professionals from Bethesda formed a judges’ panel for an oral examination to assess the understanding of the women before awarding them permission to practice as health extension workers. Praise was showered on Akpavi Godonou*, the woman who received 18/20, the highest score.
However, the joy of being honored faded quickly when, two weeks later, Godonou’s 2-year-old child died of malnutrition. Although Godonou knew what her children needed to eat to grow strong, she and her husband couldn’t find work that paid for adequate protein for their family.
“We learned that knowledge alone was not enough,” said Raphaël Edou, then director of Bethesda’s department of community development, Développement Communautaire et Assainissement du Milieu. “Knowledge needs to be supported by economic empowerment.” (Now, 20 years later, Edou serves Benin as national Minister of the Environment.)
Another aspect of community development under Edou’s jurisdiction was neighborhood sanitation. He had put into place a project that cleaned up city dumps and created healthier places for people who had formerly lived among the mountains of garbage. Edou found employment for Godonou’s husband in this project, ensuring a steady income for the family.
Not satisfied with improving the life of a single family, Edou proposed a community bank, PEBCo, which would lend money to help women begin small, home-based businesses.
Because of Bethesda’s credibility, many people preferred depositing their savings in PEBCo rather than the conventional banking system. These savings grew the bank rapidly and made it possible to increase the number of loans. By 1999, PEBCo had grown so dramatically that it became its own department in Bethesda’s organizational structure with its board made up of members from 24 supporting denominations.
In 2013, PEBCo generated a net income of nearly half a million dollars that is used to expand lending. The bank has 27 branch offices throughout the country that allow 100 percent of the country’s population access to its services with a walk of five miles or less.
Out of 40 similar institutions recognized by Benin’s supervisory authority, PEBCo is ranked second in the number of people it serves.
Download full-resolution image.Pascal Tamègnon became the administrator of PEBCo soon after its inception. He said that PEBCO’s success is based on Christian values like integrity, solidarity, good service, accountability, and gender equality.
“We also aim to be politically neutral,” Tamègnon said. “At the forefront of our minds, we always keep our mission of improving the living conditions of the poor in our communities through financial solidarity and the immeasurable qualities of respect and Christian love.”
Beyond providing banking services, PEBCo assists its clients in record-keeping, cash-flow management, and reinvesting income to grow their businesses.
Tamègnon said that before entering any new phase, PEBCo’s personnel, mostly young and dynamic Christians eager to practice what they preach, seek God’s will through sessions of prayer and fasting.
“Many of our clients say that the money they borrow from PEBCo is blessed. It goes further than they expect to help them realize their dreams,” Tamègnon said. “This is because we seek to glorify God in all that we do.”
Steve Wiebe-Johnson, now Mission Network’s Director for Africa, served in Benin from 1996-1999. He played an important role in securing the original funding for PEBCo.
“It takes strong and innovative leadership to bring things together,” Wiebe-Johnson said. “Simply throwing money at situations is not a solution. Our role as a mission agency has been to walk alongside of local leadership and to encourage focused development and investment of our resources at key moments in time.”
*pseudonym to maintain confidentiality
[Updated 2/10/15: Organization name corrected to reflect a 2013 name change and current bank reach.]
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Mennonite Mission Network, the mission agency of Mennonite Church USA, leads, mobilizes and equips the church to participate in holistic witness to Jesus Christ in a broken world. Media may contact news@mennonitemission.net.
