Work begins

We had a great first day working with here in Lilongwe. We had a meeting with Malawi Union of Savings and Credit Cooperatives today or other wise known as MUSCCO. Mr. Kadzola the CEO and his staff spent the day giving us the history and background of MUSCCO as well as some of the Credit Unions we will be visiting. Credit Unions here in Malawi are known as the SACCO's which stands for Savings and Credit Union Cooperatvies. They stopped calling themselves Credit Unions quite some time ago as people where focusing to much on the "Credit" and there was no focus on Savings therefore they were only coming to the Credit Union for loans and keeping their savings elsewhere. They feel the name change definately helped solve that issue. We had the chance to exchange our currency into Kwacha (Malawian dollars) and found out what the term a "stack of bills" really means, as you can see Dave showing off his half a million Kwacha which was equivalent to $2600 US. I think I might need a bigger wallet!!

Malawi Union of Savings and Credit Cooperatives offices in Lilongwe Malawi

Mr Kadzola and his senior management staff

Dave you are going to need a bigger money belt!!