Micro credit project to empower NE women

Forty entrepreneurs to be granted loans from January onwards  

The Colombo Plan is providing a grant from its ‘Community Development Fund’ to the Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce (WCIC) to implement a micro credit project in the Jaffna and Mannar Districts.

The project aims to uplift the lives of poverty stricken households, especially the women-headed ones in these two areas most affected by the 30 year conflict. The project begins in January 2011 and will be maintained as a revolving fund.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by Secretary-General of the Colombo Plan, Dato’ Patricia Yoon-Moi Chia and Chairperson of the Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Vidyani Hettigoda.

The initial pledge from the Colombo Plan Secretariat was made this month, after the Secretary-General of the Colombo Plan’s visit to Jaffna in October. In support of the Government’s ‘Northern Spring Programme,’ the WCIC project’s key objective is to create job opportunities in the districts and empower women as entrepreneurs.

The fund will be allocated to 40 women to begin small to medium sized businesses, or to enhance their existing businesses. They are required to have a business plan and organise themselves in groups of five according to the nature of their business activity.

The women were chosen through assistance from Women’s Chambers in Jaffna and other organisations in the north east peninsula. The women would be given between Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 25,000 to be paid back over a year through instalments after a three-month grace period, at a very low interest rate of 4%- 5%.

The responsibility of maintenance of the revolving fund and its allocation lies with the WCIC. Hettigoda said that the WCIC’s role would include provision of training in relevant sectors such as accounting, financial analysis, management and product development. Support would also be provided through equipment sourcing and finding markets for the products outside of the Jaffna and Mannar Districts.

The WCIC states that the capacity of micro finance services must be built so that they can provide improved products in a sustainable manner and reach the marginalised groups in order to reintegrate them into society. Depending on the success of the programme after a three-year period, the project would consider expansion across the country.

The WCIC is a non-profit organisation of professional women in business and management and was started in 1985 as the first women-only trade chamber to be set up in Sri Lanka or the world.