
Kanu Bibi joined this
programme in 2002.
She saves Rs. 25 each
month.
She has already taken 4 loans. These loans allowed her to pay for a
steel stick for her
mother, for house
repairing and for the
treatment and the eye
operation of her mother.
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Urmila Devi joined this
programme in 2000.
She saves Rs. 50 each
month. She has taken
3 loans. These loans
allowed her to pay
for the funerals of
her father, for house
repairing and for a
treatment for her
daughter. At present,
she wants to save
money for her child
future.
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TWIN’S
Micro Savings & Micro Credit programme
The aim of this programme is to empower
the women developping saving
habits and entrepreneurship.
TWIN give them the support they need to become economically independent.
This programme was
launched in the late nineties. Currently, TWIN manages 28 Self Help
Groups (SHG), formed with 10-15 members in a
group. 294 women are involved in this programme.
What is a
Self Help Group (SHG)?
SHG is a forum of women who have voluntereed to form a group for developing ways and means to
improve their family situation and self dependence. Every month
members save a predetermined amount as
fixed by individual group members. The group members deposit their
savings with
TWIN, working as the intermediary, who in turn, keep the money in a
single savings bank account, on behalf of all the groups. A part of
deposit
is always kept
fixed to earn higher rate of interest for group benefit.
One or more group members may take a
loan for undertaking their
economic activities, to
meet their social obligations or in case of meeting emergency
requirements of money. Pass books are
issued to
all saving members and individual personal ledger books are also
maintained. The accounts
are audited every year.
Rules have been laid down
for Micro Savings & Micro Credit programme. Members of each group
meet at regular intervals to discuss their problems and other issues of
mutual interest.
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Why
micro-finance is so important?
Poverty is the greatest
threat to social cohesion and environmental health of the human beings.
It reduces people’s capacity to use resources in a sustainable manner.
In India, a large part of the population live below the poverty line,
so
it is not easy to instil into them the habit of saving. Saving is not
only a function of income but is a matter of habit.
While people need
institutions where they can safely deposit their hardly earned savings,
the rigidity of formal banking rules and administrative procedures
often kill the growth potential of the poor. Thus, one of the most
powerful ways of opening markets to the poor is to ensure more equal
access to credit.
Poor households are able and willing to pay even
market rate of interest. They hardly mind cost of credit as it is more
than offset by timely credit and rapidity of turnover. What they really
need is micro credit facility as a start up capital for their micro
enterprise or savings available in case of crisis.
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