 |
Project Management training with inspiring Sri Lankan micro-credit institution.
-
|
Thanks to funding from the Scottish Executive, CWW has over the last year been running a programme of support for NGO’s and charities supporting livelihood recovery in areas of Sri Lanka affected by the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
Thalia Liebig, a former Project Manager with Brighton and Hove City Council recently completed a 3 month assignment with the Women’s Development Federation in Hambantota, one of the most economically deprived districts of Sri Lanka.
“My placement's been a brilliant experience. It's been challenging and even a little bizarre at times, but that's what's made it so good. Bias aside, the NGO I was working with is doing fantastic work. I've heard so many horror stories about inefficient and even corrupt NGOs that I feel truly lucky to be working with the WDF.”
The Women’s Development Federation (WDF) established in 1989, is a micro credit institution (modelled after Bangladesh's Grameen Bank) run and managed wholly by its target group of poor rural women. There are currently 37,000 members and 84 Janasakthi ('People's Strength') Bank Societies. It is the largest women's organisation in Sri Lanka. The Janasakthi Bank Societies (JBS) function as professional banking institutions, accepting savings and making available loans to members for income-generating activities, housing construction and improvements and the purchasing of consumables. Mainstream banks are out of reach for the rural poor, because of the distances and expenses to travel, the comparatively small savings to be deposited and the lack of collateral or guarantors for loans.
Importantly, the WDF trains and supports its members - equipping them with the skills and knowledge needed to make their income generating activities successful. The WDF is financially self-sustaining, even generating a surplus from members' savings, but it additionally receives funds as loans from national organisations and grants from donors (such as Oxfam, UNICEF, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, USAID, the Red Cross etc) for special projects targeted at members.
This was the area of focus for Thalia’s 3 month assignment. She designed and facilitated, with the aid of a much needed translator, a project management training course for 12 managers. She also put together a basic monitoring and evaluation methodology and contributed to the drafting numerous funding proposals for new projects.
Thalia was based in WDF’s Head Office, which was “a little overwhelming at first”. She also found working in the all women environment different but it and meant she made some close friends and had some really colorful experiences. “I attended a wedding and the women jumped on the opportunity to put me in a sari - I had all 40 of them dressing me, putting on jewellery and make-up and doing my hair.”
The scope of her project meant she was almost entirely office based, but when she did get out on field visits she was truly inspired by what she experienced.
“It was great to actually see the work of the organisation in practice and to meet the beneficiaries, many of whom are shockingly poor. Two projects in particular stick in mind. The first trained and set-up in small-scale enterprise 159 women widowed by the Tsunami. It sounds cheesy, I know, but their courage amazed me. They're all so proud to now be earning enough money for them and their children. The second was a much smaller project - just one calf was donated to the WDF and given to one member and her family to rear. The only condition being that the first calf born to that cow is passed-on to another member and the first calf borne to that passed-on again and so on. Simple and yet very effective.”
Thalia was fortunate to make good friends with other CWW volunteers and see much of Sri Lanka in her weekends. “The whole experience has been amazing. I've done and seem things that I never would as a tourist. That's not to say that I haven't done the touristy thing at weekends. For a little country, Sri Lanka has lots of diversity.”
|
|
If you are interested in doing a Placement similar to this one, contact us quoting Case Study Reference: Project Management Sri Lanka (WDF)
|
|
|
