Financial resilience of low income women: Stories from Rural Pakistan

The pictures of women in this series have been taken with their consent, and their usage explained in their native languages through facilitators who accompanied us into the field. In cases where we were given consent but the findings included things that could potentially lead to discomfort for the sources, we will be using pseudonyms and withholding any identifying visuals.

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In a room furnished with little more than a tattered rug and a talisman on the wall, Sara greets us with the customary enthusiasm of a grandmother. Sara, lovingly known as Maa Ji in her community, is a widow and the matriarch of the family. She has 3 sons, 2 daughters, 2 daughters-in-law, and 3 grandchildren. We were visiting her home because she had a fascinating story of making her circumstances work for her to share with us.

Almost 50 years ago, Maa Ji started pooling in her first committee with just 2 rupees. She didn’t have much to spare, still she made sure she had those 2 rupees with her at the end of each month. But she wasn’t satisfied with how the committee was being run.

“If I am making my contribution on time despite struggles, I deserve to get my payout on time. But that rarely happened,” Maa Ji told us.

She decided she will address the problems by becoming a committee leader herself. Gradually, she learned how committees are managed and convinced a few people to start a new committee together that she would lead. Today, all the committees in her village are run by her. She is managing contributions by over 150 people, almost half of whom are men. But this is just the start of what’s interesting about her.

With the types of payouts and amount of cash being handled, she essentially operates as a bank in the village.

Maa Ji takes a commission from each contribution to keep for herself — Rs.10 on every Rs.1000. Through this arrangement, she earns between Rs. 6000–7000 per month. With the types of payouts and amount of cash being handled, she essentially operates as a bank in the village.

“I give loans to people who need it using the committee money. Whatever the time or day, anyone in need of help knows my door is always open.”

She manages this without having a shortfall of cash because the committees run on different schedules. There are committee with payouts every month, and some every three months. The payout day is also not the same, some are at the beginning of the month, and some in the middle. Even the contribution amount within the same committee varies from person to person.

We were curious to find if the contributors are happy with their relationship with Maa Ji, so we went around to a few houses. They all had stories to share of how she had loaned them money for funerals, weddings, medical emergencies, and was strict but understanding in asking for it to be paid back.

“The money is not hers. She always tells us that. Someone else has trusted her with their money for the committee, and she is the guarantor that it’s safe with her. We need to pay her back in time so the committees can run efficiently. It’s also our money in those committees. Everything will fail if borrowers don’t keep their part of the deal.”

“Maa Ji comes to our houses to collect the contribution herself every time. We are in the privacy of our walls so whatever she discusses is between us. If we cannot pay on time, she is very disappointed, but she doesn’t let anyone else know. I think this is why everyone cares for her too and tries their best not to cause delays.”

Maa Ji cannot read or write, which came as a shock to us considering what she does involves a lot of record keeping and calculations. She does all her records and math mentally. When we asked her about it, she smiled and said something that our facilitator translated for us as-

“Ye tou kuch bhi nai, zindagi ne aur bhi bohat kuch sikha dia/This is nothing, life has taught me so much more.”

This isn’t a rags to riches story, but not every story has to be that to be inspiring. Maa Ji realized the role she had in the community and banked on people’s trust in her. The family’s struggle with finances has not ended, but they’re doing what they can to get by. Her daughters and daughters-in-law volunteer with the polio workers through an organization in the nearby city for a stipend. Through contribution of everyone in the household, the family now owns a small grocery store next to the house that her sons run.