It can be hard for young farmers to find a savings and credit cooperative (SACCO) that will give them a loa, as they have the perception that youth cannot be trusted. Next to that, most youth do not have any collateral to be able to get a loan.
Rukiga SACCO in Uganda wanted to establish a construction in which youth can get a loan in a secure way for the SACCO.The idea was as follows: the youth were going to organise themselves in a group and would guarantee, as a group, that each individual within the group would repay the loan. That way, the group stood for the individual and the risk was shared amongst them. One of the outcomes of this idea was that one of the youths who got a loan was able to buy 5 goats and now (2 years later) has 150 goats and is making a living out of it.
Furthermore, a youth council has been set up within the credit cooperative and its members organised a youth event in Kabale to promote the services of the SACCO to the youth, which brought them 120 new members. The youth council also managed to temporarily decrease the interest rate from 2 to 1,5 %.
