National Microfinance Study of Sri Lanka: Survey of Practices and ...

Membership Development
3500
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
1995 1997 1999 2001
members
___________________________________
Small Groups
Small groups are formed that consist of 5-7 members living in the same location
meeting once a week, at these meetings savings and loans are undertaken and the
groups share their experiences and any solutions that they have found for their
problems, presently there are over 500 small groups in Galenbindunuwewa.
Village Societies
Village societies are formed as a collection of all the small groups in each village
and there are 51 village societies in Galenbindunuwewa that function as credit
societies. The village committee manages village the society with a president,
secretary and the rural manager (treasurer) holding the key positions. The rural
manager is responsible for all the financial activities such as collection of savings
and repayments and issuing loans. She also maintains financial records of all her
members. Once a month all the societies rural managers meet to evaluate the
progress of their societies and every quarter external audits are undertaken of all
credit societies.
ADP Women’s Association ( Gramashakthi Development Foundation)
The association is formed from the 51 village women societies with the president,
secretary, and the rural manager representing each village society. There are 153
voting members in the association and they appoint an executive committee as its
decision making body. An office building was granted by WVL for the women’s
association with a permanent staff consisting of a manager, cashier, accounts
assistant and two field staff. All the credit and saving programmes at the village
level are linked to this divisional level organisation.
Savings
Financial Sustainability and the food security of the members were main
objectives of the ADP design plan with the Gramashakthi Foundation as the
channel through which these objectives could be achieved. It was found that
people earned enough during the harvesting seasons but did not have a savings
culture so when the season was over they had no cash available.
93