Banking on Change for Good
Thank you to all our donors, we have met our fundraising goal!
CHAND AND JANU
Chand and Janu are best friends. They have lived in the same village for as long as they can remember and have shared life’s highs and lows together. When Chand’s husband died unexpectedly, Janu was there for her day and night. Janu held Chand as she wept, fed her small mouthfuls of congee, and sang her to sleep. Chand returned the friendship when Janu lost everything in a flood; she kept Janu’s spirits up and through sheer determination and a lot of hard work, she helped Janu start all over again.
Like many women in Sri Lanka, though, Chand and Janu are not financially literate. They have no savings and the only loans available to them have crippling interest rates. They don’t have a voice in their households or in their communities; they aren’t taken seriously as decision-makers or authority figures.
THE PROBLEM
Chand and Janu live in Theravil, a village in Sri Lanka’s north. It’s a very traditional village and women haven’t been given many opportunities to speak up about the future that they want for Theravil. Financial literacy levels are low and there isn’t a strong community network. The civil war was still very active in the area as late as 2009, and villagers are still recovering from the trauma of the conflict.
WHAT WE ARE DOING
Chand and Janu are going to be 2 of the 400 women who will make up Theravil’s first women’s bank. They will be grouped into smaller clusters and self-help groups, which will help them to understand the importance of saving, will allow them collectively advocate for the things that matter to them and will provide local sources of capital to the village – such as loans, which will support the villagers of Theravil access education and health services.
HOW WE ARE DOING IT
These 400 women will be crunching numbers in no time. They will be trained in financial literacy and leadership skills, and will learn how to advocate for the things that matter to them. The self-help groups will sit down weekly to pool savings and make group decisions about how these funds will be used. A real benefit of this is that it develops strong community ties and creates platforms for change in the village.
We take a systems approach in how we work – transforming the systems that keep the poor economically and financially excluded. What this means is that we look at the root problems in why the poor are not being connected to needed financial services and work with the community and market actors to address these barriers, one by one.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
This programme gives 400 women just like Chand and Janu the opportunity to develop financial skills, access leadership training, and enjoy access to mentors. In order to start this project in Theravil, we need to raise $75,523. This works out at $189 per woman; only $38 a year over the 5-year programme to give Chand and Janu a voice in Theravil.
A WHOLE OF VILLAGE TRANSFORMATION IN THERAVIL
This project is just one of the projects that we are doing in Theravil. We work through a whole of village approach to improve the economic well being of the families and transform the village. We will spend five years in each village breaking down the barriers that prevent the poor from engaging in profitable markets, and earning enough to stand on their own two feet.
This means barriers both in the market as well as those socio-economic barriers that keep vulnerable families economically excluded.
We will achieve this over a five year period, by:
- Supporting the continued increase of income, assets and savings
- Supporting the continued increase of income, assets and savings
- Working to economically empower women & men producers so that they have a voice and agency in the homes, communities and the markets in which they work, and
- Working to reduce the vulnerability of families so that they can recover from shocks and sustain their growth out of vulnerability
This project, “Banking on change for good” is just one of the many we will be undertaking in this village over the next five years. To learn more about the village vision and the many projects that will come together to enable this change, read more here.
