Philip Kimutai Kogo is a financial literacy evangelist. As a certified SILC private service provider, or PSP, Philip travels to nearby villages in Eldoret, Kenya, spreading the word about how to use SILC microsavings to jump-start businesses and improve a family’s well-being.

For a small fee, PSPs like Philip teach group members how save, invest, and grow their money. They help get SILC groups started, support them in drafting bylaws, and assist the members in setting up group management processes. Because PSPs understand the local context, they can help SILC group members tailor their goals to the realities of their community. They also work to identify the market and financial skills each SILC group needs to develop.

As groups mature, PSPs introduce new skill sets to fit group interests, such as the CRS package of SMART Skills, a training program to teach farmers critical business, financial, and marketing skills; management of natural resources and groups; and innovation that will help them more effectively engage in the market and earn a profit on their crops. The financial education curriculum can help caregivers identify and plan for periods when they will have additional household expenses like school fees, and show them how to budget to ensure they are meeting their financial obligations and are not forced to sell critical assets or pull children from school.

Philip has expanded his reach by taking on apprentices and leading them through an extensive PSP certification process. The apprentice program organically grows the SILC group participation network to make financial services available on a broader scale. Philip and other PSPs help maintain the health of SILC groups. And, long after the initial CRS program has ended, they guarantee continued support and expansion to interested groups.

Education is power, but for many vulnerable adolescent girls, access to continued education is an insurmountable obstacle. In such cases, vocational and technical training can hold the key to providing economic security and new career opportunities.

For more than 1,500 out-of-school young women in Uganda, education and opportunity have come in the form of the humble passion fruit. The CRS-sponsored Girls Agro-Investment project, called GAIN, shows young women how farming can improve their lives. Many GAIN participants are their family’s main income earners, but have limited income sources. During the project, they draft a personal development plan; develop financial and business expertise; learn entrepreneurship, farming techniques, and critical decision-making skills; and build confidence.

GAIN works with KadAfrica, a local passion fruit enterprise, to establish an agreed-on price for the fruit by both buyer and seller. Working farmland donated by the Catholic Church, GAIN participants use their passion fruit earnings to pay for household expenses, farm supplies, medical bills, and schools fees, and to start small businesses. They calculate their profits after sale and save some in their weekly savings groups. To expand passion fruit production, family and community members are encouraged to avail small plots of land to GAIN participants.

CRS works with vulnerable farming households worldwide to identify productive and promising value chains in which they can work collectively to market their goods. Understanding market demand and being able to offer valuable crops in large quantities help farmers get a higher return on their investment and give them more bargaining power when setting prices.

Economic empowerment coupled with broadened life, business, and savings skills provides GAIN participants with increased control over their futures. The profits they earn through farming enhance their overall life quality by helping them meet their family’s needs and reducing their economic vulnerability.