Likelemba - Africa

According to Wikipedia, Likelemba is an African system of solidarity savings mechanism where several members put a certain sum of money in a "pot" and every month, the total amount contained in the pot is then donated to one of the participating members - a sort of little lottery.

Rather than being an "African" system of savings it seems this name for the system is localised to Congo and maybe some surrounding countries.

Example

Twelve persons - mostly woman - put 100€ every month in their "likelemba pot".

* Month 1, member 1 - normally chosen by chance - gets 12 x 100€ = 1,200 €.
* Month 2, another member gets elected and rewarded with the 1,200 €, etc.

Benefits

The secret of the success of Likelemba is its simpleness and formula whereby a lot of small amounts, that every member can easily spare, make one big prize. The winner has a fairly large amount with which he/she can do something extraordinary and, hopefully, break out of a financial circle of misery or life style in which he/she might be stuck.