Blog FeedDiscoveries in the Data: The five most interesting findings of our research.
There are two numbers that drive Freedom from Hunger-1.2 million (the number of very poor women served by our program partners around the world) and the number 1 (the individual woman whose self-help efforts are supported by Credit with Education and our other service innovations). One by one, these women lift themselves and their families out of poverty and ignorance so deep they were chronically hungry. One by one, they tell us their stories. As much as we’d like to, we can’t listen to all 1.2 million stories. Instead, we use research methods of sampling and measurement and statistical analysis to verify our progress. We select a representative group of women, listen to their stories and draw conclusions about the experience of all 1.2 million. This is difficult, but very important work.
One woman who represents 1.2 million women
Here is one story, that of Pricilla in Ghana. Our research indicates she is typical of the 1.2 million women.
Pricilla lives in the same rural village where she was born 27 years ago. She is married with two daughters, aged 12 and 5. Her house is made of mud walls surrounding one room and a dirt floor. We know she is doing better these days because she and her husband recently put a “tin” (corrugated iron) roof on the house. The tin roof does a much better job of keeping the rain out and their children dry.
Pricilla joined her Credit with Education group, hoping to get a loan to grow her business of selling charcoal. Her first loan was for the equivalent of $40. She has worked her way up to a second loan of $90. “The credit has helped me boost my business so I can pay school fees. Before, my children could only sit at the gate of the school. Now they go in.” Savings are another valued service of the program. Pricilla, like the other women in her group, dutifully deposits money in savings each week after making her loan repayment-sometimes a few pennies, sometimes a few dollars. Savings prove critically important when a child becomes sick and needs medicine, when the house needs a repair, or when it is time to invest in her home-based business. “Savings are good for me. Before, I tried to save money, but it was hard. Now I can do it with the program.”
Pricilla and the other women in her group meet once a week under a shade tree near the school her daughters attend. The voices of children practicing their lessons can be heard throughout the women’s meeting. The women begin their meeting with their own lesson about malaria-where it comes from and who is most vulnerable when it strikes. The learning session is intentionally short and lively to fully engage these busy women during a few minutes of rest from their work.
Repayment and savings deposits follow the learning session. The women have already prepared their weekly installment payment on their loans and approach the table in the center of the circle in groups of three or four to watch their payment recorded and to have their savings passbooks stamped with today’s deposit.
How do we know Pricilla is typical?
Well, we don’t know for sure. Pricilla is unique, like each of us-no two alike. But we can describe an “average” woman member of an “average” Credit with Education group in an “average” country. We randomly select women from among all the women members, and we ask these selected women a series of questions. Their answers, and the way they answer, tell us about their lives. We can then calculate the average age, the average number of children, the average loan size, the average amount of savings and other averages for all the selected women. We can also determine which kinds of business are common and which are rare, how much or little their incomes have increased, how much or little they have learned from the education, how much or little they have made changes for the better in their lives, how frequently their kids have been ill from various diseases, and so on. If we have selected these women truly at random, and if the number (sample size) of the women is large enough, the averages we calculate for these women in the sample should be about the same as the averages for all the women members of Credit with Education in that country. Together, these averages paint for us a picture of a “typical” woman, and in Ghana, she looks a lot like Pricilla.
How do we know the program is what makes the difference?
Just because Pricilla reports her income went up, how can we say our program made the difference for her? Her income might have increased even without the program. If we want an accurate understanding of our impact, we need to compare what happened to Pricilla’s income to what happened to the income of another woman who was not a member of a Credit with Education group. Well, actually we have to ask about the incomes of a large number of women who were offered the opportunity to join a Credit with Education group. At the same time, we have to ask about the incomes of a similar number of women who were not offered this opportunity. Before you become alarmed about the idea of not offering the program to everyone, remember that limited resources constrain us from reaching everyone-at least at the beginning. With this in mind, we ask our local partner to randomly select which communities will be served in the first phase of expansion and which will be served later, in the second phase. This is fair-just like the coin toss that determines which team goes first. After a year or so, when the first phase is well along and just before the second phase is set to start, we ask questions to learn the stories of women in both types of community. We can see what has happened for women and their families in the communities served by Credit with Education and compare with those not yet served. If there are many communities and they are assigned truly at random, the only initial difference should be that one type was offered the program and the other was not. After a year or so, the difference between the average answers of women in the two types of community is very likely due to the presence or absence of Credit with Education.
Complicated as this may seem, the reality is much more complicated. Good research is hard to do. That is why so many organizations don’t bother. It’s too hard for them to get it right. Freedom from Hunger does bother, and we have learned a great deal.
The five most interesting findings
Poor women are empowered by Credit with Education. Too often, women living in poverty lack self-confidence and question their ability to contribute to their families’ well-being. But shortly after joining a Credit with Education program, we see women’s self-confidence and social status rise. We know this in different ways in different countries. In Bolivia, women are more likely to attend community meetings and speak up even in the presence of men. Even more, they are more likely to run for election to public office in their communities! In Ghana, empowerment shows itself in a different way. Women are more likely to contribute to the funeral costs of people who are not their own relatives. This voluntary gesture of support enhances a person’s social status in that country.
Women and their families eat better throughout the year. Rural people typically suffer a “hungry season” during one to four months before the next harvest. The food stored from the previous year’s harvest has to be stretched thin to supply the family through these lean months. The amount of food at each meal, the variety of the food, and even the number of meals per day go down so the family’s food supply will last. They go hungry at the very time when farm labor intensifies to tend the crop and bring in the harvest. It is a very difficult time, when the little bit of cash earned by women’s businesses is needed to buy food. The loans to support these businesses make a huge difference in the family’s nutrition-the hungry season is shortened or eliminated altogether for families whose women are members of Credit with Education groups.
Women can save more money and plan for future expenses. It’s hard to believe that someone living on as little as $1/day could afford to save money. However, saving money is not only possible, it’s essential to cope with the cost of medicine, house repairs and a growing business. Group members are required to deposit a little money in savings at each meeting. And thanks to the loans, their increased business income gives them more money to save. The women welcome the saving discipline and the protection of their savings from temptations of the moment or pressures from relatives that often take away whatever little money they have on hand. As they see the amount of saved money mounting in their passbooks, though only the equivalent of a few dollars, the women start to think more about the future and make plans to achieve their goals. Learning sessions on household money management make them more aware of their options, now that they have some savings to work with.
Women know how to improve their businesses and prevent common illnesses. Everywhere we work, women are eager to learn the “life skills” they need to run a tiny business, prevent common illnesses or manage them when they strike. Our learning sessions achieve just that. Research in Ghana showed that women have learned that malaria is caused by mosquitoes and that sleeping under nets prevents malaria. They become motivated to buy insecticide-treated nets, especially to protect the most vulnerable family members, young children. Research in Peru showed that our education helped women generate more stable incomes throughout the year-they had 16% higher profits in their businesses, and they increased profits in bad months by 27% more than women who had not yet received the business education.
Their children are better nourished. The vast majority of child deaths due to hunger are not caused by starvation. Rather, mild to moderate malnutrition weakens children and causes them to succumb to illnesses that our own children easily conquer. Increased income and savings enable group members to shorten or eliminate the hungry season for their families. Just as importantly, health and nutrition education enables women to use the available food better. Education about proper practices for breastfeeding and child feeding and how to prevent or treat common diarrhea enable mothers to improve the quality of food and the way they feed it to their young children, enough so that the children were heavier and taller than same-aged children of mothers without the education. In Bolivia, even children of mothers who were Credit with Education members were not better nourished unless their mothers had already received good-quality education about breastfeeding and diarrhea treatment.
These are the highlights of what the research has told us. These findings are really just a formal way to present the “typical” story of women like Pricilla. Ultimately, we learn what works, and what doesn’t work so well, by listening carefully to the women we and our partners serve-one woman at a time, 1.2 million women altogether.
