Peoples Organizations and People’s Bank

From the very inception in 1979, Shreyas has been giving prime importance in the formation of people’s organizations. We believe that local institutions can only effectively address the Regional issues. As a result number of Farm Clubs and Mahila Samajams were organized in the 80’s and may of them got registered in the Societies Registration Act 1860. Later on by 1996 these big groups were again divided into small groups in the form of Self Help Groups (SHGs).

At present 2710 Self Help Groups are working for the betterment of 45379 families. For the effective co-ordination of SHG activities they are locally federate in the form of Units and further at the Region. Besides this there are separate groups for Children, Youth, Tribals and Senior Citizens.
Also the experimenting the groups including PTD and MGBIP are working for the income generation programmes in concerned field.

Shreyas initiated Micro Finance programmes in the year 1986, with the name “Credit Union” This scheme was known as “Lakshodayam”, “Gramodayam” & “Bodhana”, promoting the savings of marginalized people for particular projects. Later on this programme is termed as “people’s bank”, where the savings of the people are managed themselves for IGP, infrastructural development, education, marriage and treatment with easy terms and conditions. At present we have 100 peoples bank units catering the needs of 45379 families.

Objectives

  1. To form and strengthen micro level people’s structures like SHGs and federations.
  2. To direct, guide and motivate the micro level people’s structures and initiatives for development collaboration at the local level.
  3. To help the Federating structures to mobilize and channelise financial resources for development initiatives.
  4. To assure optimum utilization of local finance for income generation and entrepreneurial activities .
  5. To promote the capacity building of staff and peoples’ leaders for P.B. management .
  6. To streamline the people’s structures towards sustainable development process.


Main Activities

  • Formation and strengthening of SHGs and Federations
  • Promotion of thrift, savings and credit.
  • Promotion of Bank linkages
  • Capacity building of Peoples’ leaders and staff
  • Participatory monitoring and evaluation at all levels
  • Research study and documentation
  • Promotion of family budgetting through family diary