New America
Asset Building

Watch Peruvian Women Talk About Savings

Blog Post
By 

Shweta Banerjee

May 20, 2010

Although quantitative evaluations of projects are important, they are able to relay only numbers rather than the people behind the research. This is when photographs and other forms of visual documentation can convey, as powerfully, the emotional impact of devastation, or in this case, positive change. It also allows development practitioners and think-tankers who don’t leave the glass environs of Washington DC, to get a glimpse of the world that they are trying to understand and influence - not that it can be an excuse for not actually going to the field!

In this video, indigenous Peruvian women living in the high Andean mountains describe how they have started accessing formal financial services. While at first many found bank procedures mystifying and were afraid to go in, but after working with Proyecto Capital, and becoming regular savers, they are much more confident about themselves.

Some of the points they raise about the benefits of savings include:

  • Savings are like “prevention”, a buffer for unforeseen situations such as sickness or death.
  • Savings allow them to learn not only about banks and finances but also about their rights.
  • Savings are liquid assets that can be invested in many ways: education, housing, a productive asset.
 
Proyecto Capital is a joint initiative of the Fundación Capital - a specialized nonprofit organization that builds assets for the poor in Latin America and the Caribbean — and of the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos, IEP — a social science research institution in Peru.
 
In November of 2008, Proyecto Capital collaborated with Peru’s conditional cash transfer program called Juntos. This collaboration allowed the women to save part of their cash transfer in a formal savings account with a recognized national bank.
 
Similarly, Proyecto Capital and the Government of Colombia signed an agreement to mobilize the savings of the three million families that participate in the Government’s conditional cash transfer program, called Families in Action.
 
To watch these women tell their story, click on the embedded video link above.
 
To read more about savings linked conditional cash transfer click here.