ACAF / Winkomun
Jean Claude Rodriguez (Fellow) and Abdoulaye Fall (CEO)
Founded by Ashoka Fellow, Jean Claude Rodriguez
The Problem
Refugees and new migrants are often excluded from the financial structures that allow them to fully integrate into their new community.
The Solution
ACAF is a cooperative organisation with the goal of fighting financial and social exclusion by creating and supporting self-financing communities. ACAF works with self-sustaining financial groups led by immigrants to promote networking and support their basic financial needs. These communities are small groups in which the partners – normally between 10 and 30 people – can participate through small contributions. ACAF’s proven efficient methodology is Winkomun; a solution that is expanding throughout Spain and to other European countries with low income and migrant population.
The Impact
Winkomun has expanded to 7 European countries and created a free online platform to allow anyone from around the world to access their methodology and set up a worldwide network of self-funded communities. The methodology is now in use in more than 15 countries in 4 continents, with more than 500 groups benefiting over 9,000 people directly and over 32,000 people indirectly.
“As an economic migrant, my life trajectory would never be this successful without my Self-Funded Community. It provided me with a network of support that alleviated the hardship that marked my early years in Barcelona. As the Program Manager of the Self-Funded Communities Association now, I ambition to help migrants generate the assets they need to provide for themselves and live in dignity.”