First Interviews

Today was the first day of actual field work for Yavor and I – and shockingly it went quite well. The few days of last minute preparations were somewhat hectic, with lots of last minute changes, so we were not entirely sure what to expect today. But largely thanks to SRFS officials, the day went perfectly. We met with three groups in Attibele, a district in Bangalore West. Attibele is certainly not what we would call urban, but it is close enough to Bangalore (35km) to be affected by economic activity there.

The first interview was with a group of around 15 women (many of whom left midway since they work in the government factory nearby and it was a workday). This group was 6 years old and had taken three loans from SRFS. The women primarily used the loans for education for their children, housing repairs, and investment in their silk sari business. To some degree it was discouraging that so many of the loans were not used for livelihood activities; on the other hand, it can hardly be argued that improvements in education and housing do not directly relate to improvements in overall standard of living. After the group interview, we interviewed two of the women individually. There were some problems with cross communication – unfortunately it is very difficult to draw one woman aside individually, so the individual interviews were held in a group setting. One used her loans primarily for house repairs, the other showed us the looms she bought to weave the silk for the saris with the loan.

The second group, or individual as it were, was particularly fascinating. We had specifically asked SRFS to see groups that were considered “non-performing assets” – groups in default. This interview made me incredibly glad that we did. The group disbanded a year ago, so we were only able to interview one woman. This group had given 50% of their loan funds to one woman, which she used to purchase a vehicle to transport produce to the market. The vehicle unfortunately got in an accident, at which point that woman found herself unable to repay, and because she held so much of the group’s liability, the group subsequently fell into default. She is currently trying to make enough profits via other ventures to repay the loan to SRFS, but is having little success. The main dynamic that we found interesting from this interview was that the group decided to give such a large proportion of the loan to one woman. We were later informed by the Operations Manager that this dynamic of dominant membership can be found in about three quarters of defaulting groups.

 

The final group for the day was a relatively successful and very well organized group. They were almost all literate, which is quite surprising for a Self Help Group, and the main focus of their loans seemed to be education. In fact, one woman used the loan to pay for her son to attend medical school. The leader of the group was the wife of their equivalent of the mayor of the town, and the group as a whole seemed to be quite driven and collected. They described quite detailed processes of how they deal with late or defaulting members, etc – which we had not found in either of the two previous groups.

Tomorrow will be another day of interviewing, followed by a day off and then the trip to Mysore!