Timor-Leste

“With help from Cultivate Kind and their “Seeds to prosperity” program, my dream is to one day buy a tractor to work in the rice field”.

Being a population largely dependent on subsistence agriculture for survival, communities in Timor-Leste are very vulnerable to natural disasters and shocks. To tide over the months of food shortage, people usually depend on money or savings to buy food. Cultivate Kind works with its partners on the ground in rural communities to set up Mutual Savings and Micro Loans groups.

Amelia is 65, lives in Cunha in Timor-Leste and is a member of a local savings group with other families. In the savings groups someone looks after the key, someone looks after the safe and someone else is the treasurer. Amelia is the key-holder for the group and her dream for her savings is to buy a tractor so she can use it in the rice fields.