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Kalanjiam
Foundation
was registered in 2002 as a spin-off institution
of the DHAN Foundation. The Kalanjiam Foundation
(KF) works with the mission of reducing
poverty and enabling poor women through
upscaling community banking.
Its community-banking programme is based
on the premise that access to financial
services serve as an important base to plug
leakages in cash flows of poor families.
Once these are plugged, the groups provide
social capital for value-based and self-reliant
development, besides fostering leadership
among the poor.
The programme runs in 157 blocks across
nine states, reaching out to 380,000 women
across 24,000 groups. The groups have collected
Rs942 million in savings, and leveraged
loans of Rs1.8 billion from the banks. The
Trusts have supported the Kalanjiam Foundation
since 1999, through grants to the DHAN Foundation
earlier, and directly to the newly instituted
institution during 2004-07.
During the previous (third) phase of support
(2004-07), KF upscaled the community-banking
programme to reach out to an additional
200,000 poor women from some of the most
backward districts of southern India. New
locations in 83 blocks were promoted, taking
the total reach of the programme to 157
development blocks, across 33 districts
in nine states.
The number of Self Help Groups rose from
12,112 to 23,897, and the total membership
of groups increased from 185,578 to 380,517
women. Notably, the aggregate savings of
the groups at the end of March 2007 was
Rs942 million. The programme was deepened
through the promotion of 40 federations
in this period, 12 of which cover their
own costs of operation.
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