When a community sets up a savings and loans group, it is building something new together: a shared fund, a set of rules, a small working group to run it. It asks people to trust one another and to trust the system they have built. When that trust breaks down, it is the response of the community that is the key, and the difference between short-term conservation and livelihoods interventions and effective, sustainable change for communities and the environment.
Read MoreOn the first morning in our new partner village of Ganjang, we were waiting for the women from the community to arrive for our initial focus group discussion. Heavy rain pounded the tin roof of the church we were using as a gathering space. We worried no one would come. But then, one by one, women began to arrive, soaked, shy, but determined. Before long, 60 women had filled the benches, sketching out their hopes for the future and raising concerns about polluted rivers, gold mining, and their children’s futures.
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