SAVINGS FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

[BEST PRACTICE DOCUMENTATION UNIT OF KSACS]

Community participation through community mobilization and empowerment
is inevitable in ensuring the quality and sustainability of services
implemented by the targeted intervention programme aimed at preventing
HIV/AIDS among core high groups like female sex workers and MSMs.
Almost all the Targeted Intervention Projects named ‘Suraksha
Projects’ in Kerala struggle to find enough money for community
development and empowerment initiatives. This is a hopeful story from
‘Santhwanatheeram’ – the community based organization of female sex
workers in Alappuzha District, who surmounted this stumbling block by
expediently promoting savings among their members. Santhwanatheeram
has been trying to develop saving habit among them and their deposit
is used for micro-financing, micro-credits and other such
developmental initiatives of the community.

Santhwanatheeram CBO is promoted by Jawahar Suraksha Project. When the
project started its function among the scattered female sex worker
community at Alappuzha District, they had negligible savings. The
Project identified them with the habit of spending all the income from
their occupation instantly, for their squandering life. Subsequently
they were in difficulty for money to meet their daily needs
particularly when they could not go for sex work due to illness,
arrest or raid by police, or other such causes. Habitually they depend
on local money-lenders who charge huge interest for instant money, in
need. When the project started functioning in the district, they
started asking money as loans or donations from the project staff in
such crisis situations. Even if it is for justifiable deeds, the
project team found difficulty in providing such loans at many
occasions. It also observed that such incidences created barriers in
establishing therapeutic rapport with female sex workers for expected
behavior change, to prevent HIV/AIDS among them.

The thought for initiating a small saving scheme among them emanated
from this encumbrance. The professional team of the Project supported
Santhwanatheeram CBO to set up a technically viable and functionally
feasible savings programme among its members. With the support of the
professional team, the CBO has developed a written by-law explaining
procedures and provisions of the scheme. The scheme persuades its
members to pay Rs.100 per month as monthly installment for the scheme.
The scheme offers its members the whole paid amount with a reasonable
amount as share of the profit of the scheme after the completion of
twelve months. The scheme envisages the growth of money from the
interest of small loans distributed among the members in need and from
the income of micro-financing initiatives using this savings. All the
income generated from these types of activities implemented using the
deposits of shareholders are divided equally among them after the
completion of the term.

Initially the community was hesitant to join in the scheme. There were
only 68 members in the scheme during the initial phase (2007-2008).
The scheme returned Rs. 1500 to all the members against their deposit
of Rs.1200 in 12 equal installments. By directly observing the
benefits of the scheme, i.e., availing money in need to the members of
the scheme and reasonable growth of the deposit, attracted more sex
workers to the scheme in subsequent years. In addition to this, all
the beneficiaries of the income generation programme implemented by
‘Santhwanatheeram’ using the loans from this saving scheme, also
become the members of the scheme. There has been a steady growth in
the number of shareholders in subsequent years. The membership was
176 during the period of 2008-2009 and 308 were during 2009-2010.
During the current period their number has increased to 367 and the
membership campaign is progressing. It is expected that at least 400
members will join the scheme, this year.

The scheme is implemented with the rules and regulations approved and
accepted by the sex worker community in Alappuzha District. ‘Ensuring
maximum transparency in dealings, proper accounting, simplistic
procedures for transactions, maximum utilization of the deposited
amount, maximum value for deposits, sharing the whole income from the
scheme among the shareholders, etc., are the contributing factors to
success of the programme,’ the CBO leaders and Jawahar team affirms.
Every month a considerable amount is deposited in the scheme that
enables Santhwanatheeram to initiate various social development
programmes for the welfare of the female sex workers in the district.

As a by-product, the scheme ensures regular visit of female sex
workers to the drop-in-centres to pay the monthly installments. It
helps Jawahar Suraksha Project to ensure regular services to build
safe sex practices among them. The Project identifies the scheme as
one of the best strategies to maintain therapeutic rapport with house
based sex workers and is trying to get maximum reach among them
through this scheme.

With necessary local specific changes, other CBOs and NGOs working
among the Core Groups, particularly among female sex workers, can
implement the scheme. It will certainly ensure maximum reach and
coverage among them. It will also boost the community mobilization and
empowerment initiatives, as visualized by the National AIDS Control
Programme, phase –III.

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