Bringing hope to rural dwellers

Patrick Matbob





 
An Asian Development Bank funded microfinance pilot project to provide basic financial literacy training for villagers is bringing hope to many rural people in Madang province.
  The project which is being facilitated by Bogia Cooperative Society in Madang this year trained and graduated its first lot of village men and women last month.
  The graduation ceremony held at Bunu villages north of Madang was attended by the Deputy Governor of Bank of Papua New Guinea Loi Bakani, and representatives of Asian Development Bank, AusAID and Nationwide Microbank.
  The villagers took the opportunity to share their experiences and told the guests that the training has given them hope to earn and manage money in the villages.
  “We don’t need handouts, but we badly need good roads to get our produce to the markets in town so that we can generate money to care for our families,” Joe Hare, one of the graduate said. Joe is a member of the Ving Community Development Centre, one of 50 that are participating in the project. He said they were grateful for the financial training that they had received which has brought hope to the people in isolated rural areas who have no access to roads and other government infrastructures and services.
  He said since 2006 Bogia Cooperative has established Community Development Centres (CDCs) in the disadvantage areas and introduced village banking services and training to help the people achieve some financial independence.
  The literacy training involves four key areas—savings, budgeting, debt management and microfinance services in the country.
  Hare said the cooperative’s efforts have been recognized by the Asian Development Bank and Nationwide Micro Bank who have come in with resources to assist the project.
  Hare also asked ADB to continue to assist Bogia Cooperative to strengthen its institutional capacity so it can keep managing the CDCs that it has set up.
  “The network has already been established between the donors, Bogia Cooperative Society and the CDCs which is the way forward for rural development and poverty alleviation. Therefore we look forward to ADB’s next project to strengthen this network so we can trade our goods, save money, improve health and education for our children and the general wellbeing of our families and communities”.
  Hare also called on their politicians to upgrade the feeder roads into the rural areas so people can take their cash crops to the markets. He also wanted the leaders to assist Bogia Cooperative with the necessary infrastructure so it can create export market links that would ensure maximum benefits go directly to the farmers.
  A number of village women also graduated from the training course and said they felt very lucky. They said the training has shown them how to create changes to improve their lives.
  Elizabeth Wal of Baram Community Development Centre (CDC) speaking on behalf of the graduates said women can make and save money because they are good managers of their home.
  She said members of the community who suffer most are women and children and challenged graduating women to make full use their financial knowledge and the village banking service.
  “We are good savers and we are the ones to make the change now from the knowledge we have gained,” she said.
  Wal said they were privileged to have Bank of PNG executive Loi Bakani and donor representatives attend their graduation.
  She said many women have never seen a passbook nor the inside of a bank before. She said with the village banking concept they do not have to leave their village to do banking and the service is delivered to them.
  She said they still needed more skills training, a funding source that they could borrow from, and other services such as clean water, rural electrification, and roads.
  She appealed to Madang government to support Bogia Cooperative by providing basic infrastructure services.
  She also said Bogia Cooperative was a good private sector model for community development and appealed to the PNG government, ADB and AusAID to support its initiative.
  Deputy Governor Bakani while congratulating the graduates appealed to them to participate in genuine financial training and services provided by organisations such as Bogia Cooperative. He warned them to avoid false money scheme operators in the country that are ripping off the people.
  These schemes such as Papalain and U-Vistrack have been collecting money from the villagers and promising them huge cash benefits that have never materialised. Thousands of people in PNG have been conned into parting with their cash. These money schemes have unfortunately affected the operations of genuine ventures such as the ADB pilot project and people have been slow to respond.
  The pilot project which began six months ago will be reviewed after 12 months to see if the financial literature training has made a positive impact in the informal sector. If the project is successful, then a national project will be initiated for the rest of PNG to strengthen the informal economy by linking it to the microfinance activity.
  Bogia Cooperative Society, one of the first to be set up in PNG in 2003, has been involved in assisting people mainly with export of copra. However, the environment has not been conducive in the provinces to promote rural business because of lack of transportation, road access and storage space for produce. This has led to the society changing its scope to become a vehicle for development and change to build and strengthen communities.
  Executive Director of Bogia Cooperative Society Peter Muriki said: “While people expect cash dividends, we give dividends in many ways through knowledge, training as well as cash.”
  He said that the society realised that although the villagers were earning a lot from their exports, they were not saving their money. This has led to people not having the money to afford education and health services and to improve their lives.
  Muriki said this was the reason he decided to go into village banking to train and develop a culture of savings amongst local people while assisting them with money making projects.