Acronyms

ENTENDED MICRO-FINANCE PROJECT OF POOR WOMEN OF SAYEDPUR CAMPS IN NILPHAMARI DISTRICT

Back ground of the project
This project was extended on the basis of experience gained from the last year’s project with the financial assistance of OBAT Helpers Inc., USA. The implementation period was March 2008 to February 2009. The project attempted to focus on camp dwellers in Syedpur town in northern part of the country where concentration of stranded Pakistani people is very high. They are poor and rootless and no place to live at their own. The vast majority of women of the dwellers are hard core poor and they are struggling for survival. Thus, income generation activities could help the distress women who may create positive impact on their life style by raising social awareness and providing small scale loan to them for poverty reduction. These activities aimed at covering wide range of activities like income generation activities, improving health and nutrition, water and sanitation, environment, child rights and human rights etc.

1. Objective of the project

The main objective of the project was improving the quality of life of the women of the camps. The project has set some specific goal to bring target women under income generation activities. These are

a) Organizing poor women and build-up social awareness, orientation on micro-credit operation, group savings and utilization of fund for poverty reduction;
b) Providing skill development training on income generation activities; and
c) Creating awareness on health, hygiene so that they can receive govt. health services for themselves and the under age children.

2. Coverage of the project

There are 20 camps in Syedpur with 4255 families and 20,000 population. The project has so far covered 1075 families in 14 camps. This means that 74% families in rest of the camps still remains out of the project in spite of their eligibility.

3. Organizational development

The beneficiaries organized themselves into functional groups, elected their own leaders to manage the groups. They hold weekly meetings and discuss their problems also with weekly savings. The members have developed habit of own savings

4. Planned activities and overall achievement

In the project document a work plan was included showing the planned activities of the project. It is important to see the achievement of the planned activities

Table-9

Sl. no	Activities	Targets	Achievement	% Achievement
1	Bench mark survey of the camps and assess the socio economic condition	7 camps	09	128
2	Group formation for income generation	20 groups	47	235
3	Membership enrolment	600 members	1466	244
4	Training of Project In charge and Project Organizer	02(one)	5	250
5	Briefing of group members on income generation activities	600 women	1466	250
6	Start of group savings of the group members as soon as beneficiaries are enrolled	600	1466	250
7	Provide loan to potential members	400 women	1271	318
8	Organize weekly group meetings and create awareness on health, education and water sanitation	960 meetings	2256 meetings	235
9	Collection of weekly credit installment from the members	600 women	1271	212
10	Loan provide to new members	600 women	671	112

The table shows that achievement was 100% to 318% against the specific planned activities. This indicates that the project was effectively implemented.

5. Disbursement of project loan among the members

In the project there was target of 400 members to be provided with loan. The loan giving ceremony was started in the month April 2008. Total project fund for loan was Tk. 4,000,000. The loan giving activities continued throughout the project period. Out of total loan distributed among the beneficiaries Tk. 3,154,005 was collected and rest amount was outstanding in the field. The amount collected revolved among the beneficiaries enrolled as new members in gradual process. The rate of loan repayment by the members is 100%.

In the following camps income generation activities were carried out. The table shows the number of saving members and loan provided to the members for income generation activities:

Table - 10
Savings members and Members received loan

Sl. no	Name of Camp	No of Saving members	No of members received loan
1	Islambagh	35	29
2	Rasulpur	36	27
3	Munshipara	105	97
4	Hatikhana	264	250
5	Out house	35	30
6	Mistrypara	120	108
7	Golahat	164	147
8	Cinema Hall Camp	105	101
9	Golahat-1	165	132
10	Durgamill	35	29
11	Bashbari	85	64
-	Total	1149	1014

Table - 11
The members utilize their loan in the following trades and business

Sl. no	Name of Trade & Business	No of members	%members involved in the business
1	Rickshaw / Rickshaw Van Pulling and Cart	263	26
2	Food Processing	09	01
3	Small Trade	694	68
4	Small Engineering & Manufacturing	36	3.55
5	Hotel business	12	1.18
-	Total	1014	-

It is found that small business was the most important activities followed by Rickshaw and Rickshaw van pulling from which they are economically benefited.


6. Repayment Trend

It is found that repayment of loan was 100% in all cases till to-date. There has been a very good trend set by the members of the groups particularly in repayment of loan.

7. Creation of awareness of the beneficiaries

Creation of awareness of the beneficiaries (women members) was one of the objectives of the project. An attempt is being made to see how far the awareness was created among the beneficiaries on basic health, nutrition, water, sanitation hygiene and education. The level of knowledge of the members in new camps was assessed. The project staff during their field visits attends the group meetings and raises awareness of the members on health nutrition hygiene sanitation and education etc. The group members send their children to schools obtain health service from services providers or themselves and their children practice hygiene behaviors use sanitation and drink safe water at family levels. The level of existing knowledge and members acquiring knowledge on different indicators are shown in the following table:

Table - 12
Level of knowledge of group members on selected indicators

Sl. no	Variables	% of members having knowledge before the project (as per BLS)*	% of members acquired knowledge through project organizer after the project
1	Immunization of children	93	07
2	Nutritional blindness prevention(nutrient vegetables)	30	70
3	Diarrhoeal diseases	80	20
4	Taking iodated salt to remove iodine deficiency	8	92
5	Preparation of oral saline	12	88
6	Use of sanitary latrines	15	85
7	Washing of hands with soap/ash before and after defecation	20	80
8	Washing of hand with soap before eating	85	15
9	Use pf sandals while using latrines	10	90
10	Drinking safe water	99	01
11	Prohibition of child marriage	30	70
12	Registration of birth	none	100
13	Sending children of 6+ to school(which is free)	35	65

It is found that majority of members had knowledge about immunization of children diarrhoeal diseases, washing hands with soap before eating and drinking water before the project was undertaken. But overwhelming majority of the members acquired knowledge on nutritional blindness prevention, taking iodated salt, preparation of ORS, use of sanitary latrines, washing of hands with soap before and after defecation, use of sandals while using latrines, prohibition of child marriage, birth registration and sending their children (6+) to schools through project organizer after the implementation of project. It appears that a good deal of awareness has been created among the members through weekly meetings of the women groups after the project was implemented. This is undoubtedly a great achievement. It was also observed after discussions in focus groups that most of the members had been practicing washing hand with soap before eating, using sandals while using latrines, maintaining cleanliness at home, drinking safe water and sending children to schools.

The project management staff both at the HQ and field level thought that such a project could not produce any tangible impact within a short duration of the project rather it should continue for some more times to produce desired result. The response of the beneficiaries was highly positive and spontaneous.

8. Lessons learnt


The lessons (1) learnt from the experience of implementation of the project may be summarized as follows:

• Poor women if supported, can organize themselves into functional groups;
• Through organizational process leadership has developed from among themselves;
• Habit of savings to build up their own capital has been developed;
• Social bondage and inter personal relationship has developed through group meetings which may result into sound and stable organization;
• The members have been motivated to improve their socio-economic conditions; Habit of repayment of loan has developed;
• Capacity to develop their own production plan for investment has developed;
• Training and orientation given to members has created an opportunity to initiate project on other activities like non-formal education, health sanitation and hygiene etc.;
• Their exposure to new ideas and information on development issues has been ensured;
• A linkage with other service providers has been established;
• Demand for different types of services has been created and above all a sense of responsibility and accountability among the members has been established; and
• The result of the first phase project activities also indicates the similar lessons learnt from implementation of the project.