a screen shot of a face mask with text that says "what if? decorative face mask prompts." for a talk about susus

Finding one’s face and building financially resilient spaces through ‘susus’

Sonya Squires-Caesar, a doctoral candidate in UMBC’s language, literacy, and culture program, has been interviewing communities who use susus to save money for big-ticket items like homes, farms, or everyday needs like transportation and bills. Susu, a word thought to come linguistically from West African languages, is an informal structure of communal savings where individuals agree to give an equal amount of money to one pool. Members then decide the frequency of when someone receives the entire amount. “I remember my mother planning her spending around when she would get her payment,” says Squires-Caesar, whose family is from Barbados. Squires-Caesar… Continue Reading Finding one’s face and building financially resilient spaces through ‘susus’