Mann Deshi Foundation: Rural Women's Savings & Empowerment PDF

Mann Deshi Foundation Chetna Gala Sinha  Mann Deshi foundation is a financial institution set up and owned by rural women in India. They never had an opportunity to go to school, but they are ordinary women who did extraordinary things with the greatest of their courage, wisdom and humil...

Mann Deshi Foundation Chetna Gala Sinha  Mann Deshi foundation is a financial institution set up and owned by rural women in India. They never had an opportunity to go to school, but they are ordinary women who did extraordinary things with the greatest of their courage, wisdom and humility. Chetna Gala Sinha has worked and lived with them for over three decades and has the following story to tell  Chetna Gala Sinha (Mann Deshi foundation) When I was in college, I met Jayapraskash Narayam, famous Gandhian leader who inspired youth to work in rural India. I went into the village to work in rural India. I was part of the land rights movement, farmers’ movement and women’s movement I ended up in a very small village, fell in love with a young, handsome, dynamic Chetna Gala Sinha (Mann Deshi foundation) A few years later, a woman called Kantabai came to me and said ‘I want to open a saving account. I want to save.’ I asked Kantabai: ‘You are doing business of blacksmith. Do you have enough to save? You are staying on the street, can you save?’ She was insistent. She said ‘I want to save because I want to buy plastic sheet before the monsoons arrive. I want to save my family from rain’. Chetna Gala Sinha (Mann Deshi foundation)  Kantabai wanted to save 10 rupees a day; which is less than 15 cents. Bank managers refused to open the account for her. He said her amount is too small and it’s not worth his time. She was not asking for loans, subsidy or grant, but she wanted to save her hard earned money which she has the right to do.  So I said if banks are not opening the account for her, why not start a bank which will give an opportunity for women like Kantabai to save? So I applied for the banking license to Reserve Bank of India Chetna Gala Sinha (Mann Deshi foundation) Reserve Bank of India rejected our application for license on grounds that the bank cannot promote members who are non-literate. I was agree, I told Kantabai and other women that we could not get the license because our women are non-literate. The women said ‘Stop crying, we will learn to read and write and apply again’ Chetna Gala Sinha (Mann Deshi foundation)  So we started our literacy classes. Every day, our determined women would come to learn to read and write, even after they’ve worked all day  After 5 months, we applied again; this time 15 women accompanied me to the Reserve Bank of India. Our women told the manager ‘You rejected our license because we cannot read and write. There were no schools when we were growing, so we are not responsible for our non-education. Yes, we cannot read and write, but we can count’ Chetna Gala Sinha (Mann Deshi foundation) They challenged the officer and said ‘Then tell us to calculate the interest of any principal amount. If we are unable to do it, don’t give us the license. Tell your officers to do it without calculator and see who can calculate faster’. Yes, we got the banking license Chetna Gala Sinha (Mann Deshi foundation) Today, Kantabai own her house. When we started the our banking operations, I saw that women were not able to come to the bank because any day they come to the bank, they lose the working day. So I decided that if they won’t come to the bank, bank will go to them, so we started doorstep banking. Chetna Gala Sinha (Mann Deshi foundation) Recently, we started digital banking. Digital banking required that they remember a PIN. Our women said ‘we don’t want a PIN, that’s not a good idea’. We tried convincing them that we will help them remember. They were firm and they suggested ‘what about thumb?’ I thought that’s a great idea. We’ll link that digital banking with biometric, and now women use the digital financial transaction by using thumb. Chetna Gala Sinha (Mann Deshi foundation)  You know what they said ‘anybody can steal my thumb and take away my hard-earned money, but nobody can steal my thumb’  That reinforced the teaching that I have always learned from women: never provide poor solutions to poor people; they are smart.  Today, more than 100,000 women are banking with us and we have more than 20 million dollars of capital from savings and capital from women. No outside investors asking us for business plan, no, it is our rural women’s saving Visit these sites for more details https://www.ted.com/talks/chetna_gala_sinha_how_women_in_rura l_india_turned_courage_into_capital https://manndeshifoundation.org