23.9.08
Annual Women's Conference 2008
Each year, Common Interest organizes an annual conference for its microfinance program. The goal of the conference is to bring Village Bank leaders together for an opportunity to share experiences and knowledge. The conference had at least one representative from every Village Bank. Here are some highlights:
In small groups, women shared their knowledge and taught each other.
Leaders from Surin province joined the leaders from Chiang Mai for knowledge sharing. Women in Surin have been operating Village Banks for up to 12 years. The lady in the photo is the President of her Village Bank. They started 7 years ago with 26 members and now have over 500! Not only is their Village Bank doing well but they have started offering additional services. Each member pays 10 baht (30 US cent) per month. This gives them hospital insurance, life insurance and funds for pregnancy costs. The Chiang Mai Village Banks were very motivated and impressed by what they heard from the Surin groups.
Representatives from Micro-Enterprise Tools gave a 1 hour sample lesson from their Business Training program. Using participatory teaching methods, members learned about the importance of savings for unanticipated events.
Approximately half of the Village Bank members are traders in local markets. If you have ever been to a market, everyone wears aprons. As a small gift, Common Interest provided free aprons to everyone who attended the conference.
In small groups, women shared their knowledge and taught each other.
Leaders from Surin province joined the leaders from Chiang Mai for knowledge sharing. Women in Surin have been operating Village Banks for up to 12 years. The lady in the photo is the President of her Village Bank. They started 7 years ago with 26 members and now have over 500! Not only is their Village Bank doing well but they have started offering additional services. Each member pays 10 baht (30 US cent) per month. This gives them hospital insurance, life insurance and funds for pregnancy costs. The Chiang Mai Village Banks were very motivated and impressed by what they heard from the Surin groups.
Representatives from Micro-Enterprise Tools gave a 1 hour sample lesson from their Business Training program. Using participatory teaching methods, members learned about the importance of savings for unanticipated events.
Approximately half of the Village Bank members are traders in local markets. If you have ever been to a market, everyone wears aprons. As a small gift, Common Interest provided free aprons to everyone who attended the conference.Labels: chiang mai, conference, group, women
12.9.08
Evaluation Update
For the past 6 weeks, we have slowed down our growth in order to evaluate what we have done. It has been a very interesting and useful exercise for us. After visiting every group at least twice, we have come to the conclusion that the Village Banking system works well in a Thai context. Every village seems very happy with the program and several have already added new members to their group. We are quite happy with what we’re seeing.
We are also learning about weaknesses in our system that we need to immediately change. As mentioned in a previous post, we now have a few HIV groups. Because of discrimination in the local villages, most people living with HIV are excluded from community groups. As a result, we have agreed to set up several special groups to provide them with opportunities. While all members are from the same area, they are not necessarily from the same village. We are realizing now that this is a potential weakness for us since these groups do not have the same strong social bonds that are found among people from the same village.
Second, we are realizing that we have less control over the membership. In our previous system, we used to interview every member and visit every member’s house. However; in the Village Banking system, control over membership is handed over to Board of the Village Bank. This is done intentionally because we eventually want the local Village Bank to be able to run on its own. Choosing their own members should be one of the first responsibilities for them to manage. However; we are seeing that some of the new members are not necessarily poor. While we knew that this would happen, it is difficult for us when we actually see it.
From this experience, we are even more determined to choose new villages with a significant numbers of poor people. We then will work hard to ensure that as many poor are included in the initial set-up as possible. Finally, we will continue to remind the Village Bank of why it was started – to help those who do not have opportunities.
The next month will be spent identifying potential new villages. They will be limited to the Mae Taeng and Phrao areas since this is where we are currently working. We are expecting that by early November, we will start expanding again.
We are also learning about weaknesses in our system that we need to immediately change. As mentioned in a previous post, we now have a few HIV groups. Because of discrimination in the local villages, most people living with HIV are excluded from community groups. As a result, we have agreed to set up several special groups to provide them with opportunities. While all members are from the same area, they are not necessarily from the same village. We are realizing now that this is a potential weakness for us since these groups do not have the same strong social bonds that are found among people from the same village.
Second, we are realizing that we have less control over the membership. In our previous system, we used to interview every member and visit every member’s house. However; in the Village Banking system, control over membership is handed over to Board of the Village Bank. This is done intentionally because we eventually want the local Village Bank to be able to run on its own. Choosing their own members should be one of the first responsibilities for them to manage. However; we are seeing that some of the new members are not necessarily poor. While we knew that this would happen, it is difficult for us when we actually see it.
From this experience, we are even more determined to choose new villages with a significant numbers of poor people. We then will work hard to ensure that as many poor are included in the initial set-up as possible. Finally, we will continue to remind the Village Bank of why it was started – to help those who do not have opportunities.
The next month will be spent identifying potential new villages. They will be limited to the Mae Taeng and Phrao areas since this is where we are currently working. We are expecting that by early November, we will start expanding again.
