The plateau region of Uvira territory, South Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has areas as high as 3,000 metres above sea level. There is one unpaved access road passable for five months of the year, no electricity, mobile or internet networks, and insecurity due to lack of government, decades of inter-ethnic conflict and roaming armed groups.

Over the last seven years Children in Crisis has seen communities there become increasingly engaged in schooling for their children, from retaining teachers to ensuring access for the poorest. A growing voice for women has been critical to these changes, so when Children in Crisis started working with partners in Katobo, Marungu and Bijojo in April, trialling Village Savings and Loans Associations (VSLA), we set a target of 70% women members.

In this remote and insecure environment there is no access to formal financial institutions and communities had a negative experience with a previous microfinance project. Participants in the VSLAs expressed an inability to plan beyond the immediate future and many interviewees had experienced food insecurity in the last year according to Children in Crisis’s study of 72 people, in a report to be published next month.

Five months in, where are we at? There are 27 groups saving money, with a total of 631 members (67% women) across the three target areas. From a qualitative study of 20 VSLA members between 12 and 14 September in Katobo, we found the VSLAs have helped towards school fees and women are more valued by their husbands for the financial contribution they can make.

Successful VSLAs are built on trust, joint decision-making and strict procedures. Everything is set up by the group for the group, with a system of checks and balances to maintain trust. The committee has to be elected by all the members, the rules are agreed at the beginning by everyone, the safe has three keys that are kept by three members, and the safe is kept by the treasurer. Applications for credit must say how much the applicant would like and why. The amount can be a maximum of three times the amount they have saved, which is the major control. If there are more requests than money in the fund, the group prioritises.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A member pays back the first installment of her loan at Upendo VSLA in Mushegya village, Katobo, Congo. Photograph: Amy Parker

There is a social fund for the ill, which is a source of pride for the group, and 75% of participants also spoke of positive change around social cohesion and mutual respect. This is a region where two ethnic communities, the Banyamulenge and the Bafuliru, were at war between 1996 and 2004 and a deep mistrust remains evident. Yet members of both communities are in the same savings groups and this is contributing to reconciliation.

There are challenges. The region is vast and field officers who established and monitor the system have to cover huge distances on foot to reach their groups. Initially many men also refused to allow their wives to join the groups. However, the field officers have helped change men’s minds with presentations about the project after church and in the evenings. What was most important was that men were included in all the discussions and could ask questions.

Lack of personal security abides though; one of the groups in the Marungu had to be suspended after violence between the FNL (a Burundian armed group) and different Mai-Mai groups (local protection forces). But unexpectedly, the VSLAs have also attracted several young men who have been members of the local protection groups.

Despite early success, the next seven months will require close support and monitoring by the field officers to ensure that this momentum is maintained and that the rules are adhered to. Participants spoke of struggling at the beginning to find enough money to save every two weeks and that the credit available to them was still only small. To overcome this, people initially worked for others to raise funds, allowing them to save. As soon as they were able to borrow, they put the majority of it into buying something in bulk – sugar, oil, beans etc – in the cheaper lowlands markets to sell in the highlands for a profit. As for the small credits, field officers have encouraged members to plan their activities around what is available for them, reminding them bigger credits will come as savings grow.

At the moment there are no banks on the plateau, so until that changes the VSLAs will continue in the same vein, but with increasing funds and turnover. Banks in the bigger towns have a bad reputation for holding on to investors’ money, so there would need to be a change for partnerships with banks to be an option.

VSLAs are so much more than a bank. They can be a first step to uniting broken communities, to engaging women excluded from decision-making, to linking remote communities to each other and to planning for the future.

Amy Parker is programme manager for the DRC and Burundi at Children in Crisis .

Read more stories like this:

• 10 Twitter accounts to follow for financial inclusion news and views

• Live chat: can the poor bank on financial services?

• Funeral insurance in South Africa: counting the cost of life and death

• Advertisement feature: Agents of change

Join our community of development professionals and humanitarians. Follow @GuardianGDP on Twitter.