This week’s meeting of the Pattaya City Expats Club (PCEC)
on Sunday February 28 at Henry J. Bean’s continued in the series of full
weekly programmes.
PCEC member Pat Koester, also a member of the Pattaya
Friends of the PDA describes how the Village Banks are established, and the
savings and loans mechanism. The PDA’s aim is to increase rural wealth &
help keep families together, avoiding the drain of the youth to the city.
This week’s MC, Les Edmunds opened the meeting by
welcoming any first time attendees and reminding the audience that the PCEC
does not endorse any products or services that may feature within the
presentations.
This Sunday, member David Garmaise introduced this week’s
presentation; a report of the visit to Ban Kok Klang Noi, a village in the
vicinity of Buriram, by the Pattaya Friends of the Population and Community
Development Association (PDA). Stuart Saunders continued with a detailed
account of the visit, which took place from the 12th to the 14th January.
The PDA was founded in 1974 as a non-governmental
organisation with the initial aim to complement the efforts of the Royal
Thai Government in promoting family planning in Thailand, especially in
areas where knowledge and access to services were scarce. Utilising a
participatory, community-based approach, PDA recruited and trained residents
of villages and urban neighbourhoods to provide information on family
planning, including the supervised, non-medical distribution of oral
contraceptives.
Friends of the PDA member Philip Morris describes the
village irrigation scheme, recently installed, with plans to expand its
capacity in the works. Permanent water from the river is used to irrigate
vegetables on smaller plots, when the dry season will not allow rice to grow
on the larger fields.
Following the success of the family planning project, PDA
has aggressively approached the problem of rural poverty by empowering the
poor through the Village Development Partnership, which establishes a
community-owned Village Development Bank for the purpose of micro-credit.
Pat Koester, originally a Peace Corp volunteer, detailed
how the Village Banks operate.
A Village Development Bank is managed by the Village
Development Bank Committee that is half-male / half-female. Before being
able to borrow from the Bank, villagers must buy a minimum number of shares,
as well as open a savings account at the bank. A savings account pays 6%
interest which is much higher than any other major bank.
Pat related that the villagers were involved from the
start with clearly stated financial goals, providing small business loans,
normally of 10,000 baht. Under normal circumstances a leader emerges who can
train others. After a period of two years the PDA is normally able to
depart, leaving the villagers to operate the village bank without further
assistance.
The Village Development Bank projects have proven to be
extremely popular as high rates of repayment and investment are available.
Pat commented that from a total of 400 such projects none had failed. The
key was to ensure that the villages were totally involved, and owned the
project.
Philip Morris reported on the success of a local PDA
irrigation scheme which allowed water to be pumped from a nearby river into
storage tanks. Other activities included the setting up of toy libraries for
local children; the children earn ‘credits’ by picking up trash or other
community activities, which allows them to borrow a toy for a period of
time. These toy libraries are managed by the children, as the philosophy is
to give the children responsibility early, thereby fostering a ‘new breed’
of citizens and politicians.
The meeting continued with the confirmation that the next
‘Frugal Freddie’ dinner would be taking place on Monday 1st March at the
Carrefour Food Court located in Pattaya Klang. The purpose of this dinner is
to partake of some budget priced but nevertheless tasty food in a social
atmosphere.
The regular Open Forum was conducted by Sig Sigworth. Sig
introduced, in his own inimitable style, one of his pet subjects, that of
the high level of salt content of various foods. As always the Open Forum
provided an opportunity for questions about living in Thailand with an
emphasis on Pattaya to be asked and again proved to be the usual lively and
entertaining session. For more information regarding, not only PCEC Sunday
meetings but also the varied mid week activities, please see the Community
Happenings section of Pattaya Mail or, for more details, visit the Club’s
website at pattayacityexpatsclub.com.
