This program was started by AMDA Bangladesh in 1999 with initial seed money US$ 25,000 (equivalent to Taka 12,00,000) donated by AMDA International, Japan. The location covered by this program is 24 villages of 5 Unions under Gazaria Upazila of Munshiganj District.
The total beneficiaries are 2,294 who have been grouped into 459 groups. Each group consists of 5 members. To run the program smoothly AMDA has set up 87 centers. Under each centre there are 8 to 10 groups. There is a leader and an asst. leader in each group and they select one centre leader and asst. centre leader from themselves. The leaders are responsible to organize the group and centre meetings for different activities of this program. A staff called Field Organizer (FO) is assigned to look after 10-12 centres (350 members). His main responsibilities are to motivate the potential beneficiaries, create awareness on self reliance and social issues ( early marriage, dowry, VAW, Primary Health Care, etc.), identify credit need, conduct training on credit utilization, recovery of credit, collect saving and keep books of records. The draft loan proposals are prepared by the FO with direct involvement of the group and centre leaders. Prior to the preparation of the proposal the group member sit together and express their needs. The draft proposal is submitted by the FOs to the credit section and finally the office verifies and sanctions the loan.
This program is especially aimed to seek income generation for the economically disadvantaged people for through micro enterprise and small scale business venture. From 1999 to 2009 it has distributed cumulative micro loans to 17,107 beneficiaries and cumulative loan disbursement is US$ 2.95 million. According to AMDA's internal evaluation 80% of these beneficiaries succeeded to bring economic solvency in their families. This is the only one programs of AMDA Bangladesh that mainly generates revenue for the organization. The deficits of the programs like health, skill training and non formal education are being supported from the income of microcredit program. So the microcredit is the only one income generating tools for a non profit organization to sustain with the development programs. In this context to support the development programs the microcredit programs of AMDA Bangladesh need to be expand from its present situation.
