What is a tanda?
Tanda is a spanish term for an informal money lending circle that is formed amongst friends, families, and acquaintances. This short-term loan club is a cross-cultural and international concept that is also known as a susu, cundina, vaca, hui, paluwagan, tanamoshi, el cuchubal, pandeiros, and jamia.
An example of a tanda is as follows: A tanda is formed between six people. Each person in the tanda puts $100 into a pot every week to total a $600 pot. The first member gets the $600 pot the first week. The second member gets the next $600 pot the second week, and the third member gets the next $600 pot the third week. This continues until each member in the tanda has received the $600 pot. Usually tandas are formed out of one member’s financial emergency or if a community project needs to be funded. Tandas become ways relationships strengthen, news get exchanged, and community support grows.
What is the Tanda program?
Following the structure of a tanda, instead of waging money, participants in the Tanda program wage a topic. Each participant chooses a topic that they are researching to put in the program’s syllabus (pot). Every week a topic is taken from the pot and will be assigned to research. Each participant will research that week’s subject and will present the resources and information found on that topic. Those resources can be anything in conversation with the assigned topic. The resources can be in the form of images, video clips, PDFs, readings, websites, stories, music, etc.
This program consists of 8 weekly sessions. The weekly sessions will be conducted one night a week. Sessions will be conducted online via Zoom. The first and last session will be private. All other sessions will be public and be a presentations/discussions formats. Sessions will be recorded only for the cohort’s reference and will not be published online. Closed Captioning available. The member whom chose the week’s topic will co-facilitate their own session. Accepted participants will be asked to provide headshot, 5-10 images of their work/topic and a list of topic resources.
Application details here
Past Tandas here