Our Money, Our Movement

Alana Albee; Nandasiri Gamage

doi:10.3362/9781780440880

Our Money, Our Movement

Building a poor peoples credit union

Credit and savings mechanisms are becoming a powerful tool in development, but many initiatives are only now aiming for the ownership of these mechanisms to be in the hands of the borrowers themselves. Our Money, Our Movement describes how this goal has already been reached by the Women's Credit Union in Sri Lanka. It challenges the more conventional 'delivery' approach to development by illustrating how financial services can be controlled and managed by the poor, rather than delivered to them, an approach which has long been a fundamental tenet of the credit union movement. This is essential and inspiring reading for development agency staff, and others either interested in people's movements or involved in credit and savings initiatives.

Published: 1996
Pages: 64

eBook: 9781780440880

Paperback: 9781853393884


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii
PREFACE ix
FOREWORD by Diana Mitlin, International Institute for Environment and
Development xi
1 The Canal Bank: A short story 1
2 Supporting Emerging Poor People's Organizations 6
3 The Credit Union Co-operative Society 9
3.1 Background to the Credit Union Movement 9
3.2 The Women's Credit Union in Sri Lanka 10
3.3 A Step-by-Step Approach to Group Formation 20
3.4 When Things Go Wrong 25
4 More than Money: Social development and housing activities 29
4.1 The Children's Cultural Programme 29
4.2 Housing Loans 31
4.3 Additional Social Support 32
5 Towards Sustainability and Scaling-up 34
6 Conclusion 36
NOTES 38
APPENDICES:
1 Sri Lanka: A situation analysis 39
2 The Women's Credit Union: Statistical overview, December 1994 43
3 The Women's Credit Union: Statistical overview of finance, December 1994 44
4 The Praja Sahayaka Sewaya and the Million Houses Programme: Background information 45
BIBLIOGRAPHY 46