Friday, January 18, 2008

Follow up of "A micro effort"

There has been some response to my earlier post on micro finance from some friends of my brother Kamalakar.
A brief summary of the requirements:
"The one I am keen about at the moment is a small micro-finance effort with no name organized by P.Sunder, a cousin of Benjamin Kaila. I wrote about this in my blog. Benjamin started this on an experimental basis with fund of Rs. 12,500. The current efforts :
a) 50,000 rupees for Velur projects, current and new,
b) 35,000 rupees for Jamudupadu projects, current and new,
c)35,000 rupees for Modukur projects, new.
In addition, there is plan for a sewing training school in Modukur but this is planned for the coming summer. There is no estimate of the costs yet.
I gave 50,000 rupees so far and am trying to raise the remaining 70,000. I met Sunder a few times and spoke to the beneficiaries as well as applicants on two days. I think that I can monitor the projects, if necessary, through relatives and during my trips."

Here is an excerpt from one of the responses:
"I just wanted to let you know that we mailed a check payable to IREF for $1,000 to Kamalakar Gadde's attention yesterday. Supporting the Micro Finance project is so well worth it. I am very much impressed to read the details about this work and efforts through P.Sunder. I guess when IREF gets the check, they know where to send it to for this project (at least that's what I am assuming). If we can get the details of the work and the names of the beneficiaries, I will strongly recommend our board members to support with more funding in the near future."
My impression is that there are many who want to contribute ( on the recent trip to Andhra one group which organizes educational scholarships told me that a person they did not know at all came up with a contribution of one crore and twenty five lakhs rupees} but want be sure that the money is well spent. The one I identified is a small struggling organization at the grass roots level and the hope is that this small help will make it self sustaining. These are at the level that Shanta Devrajan talks about in this post. Excerpt:
"I left Champaben’s house with a renewed appreciation of how both markets and governments have failed poor people; how poor people are essentially helping each other; and how they do so with charm, grace--and humor. I want to go back."
P.S. This post is not a request for more funds. The current effort seems to be getting enough funds. There are many NRIs from Andhra who come from villages and periodically visit their villages and there are many efforts from them to improve their villages. This is just an example of a similar effort except that I am not from any of the villages mentioned.

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