"We may be poor, but we are so many. Why don't we start a bank of our own ? Our own women's bank, where we are treated with the respect and service that we deserve."
- Chandaben, old clothes seller,
Founder - member, SEWA Bank
"How many times do we need to prove that poor women are bankable?"
- Jayshree Vyas, M.D., SEWA Bank
"Amrut Zarnu"
Introduction
Sewa Bank's main objective is to help its members, i.e. poor self employed women to come out of the vicious cycle of poverty i.e. to help them to come out of the clutches of moneylenders and build their own capital, assets, income of business. For archiving this objective Sewa Bank has designed various Financial products of Savings, Credit, Insurance and Pension. Members of Sewa Bank being illiterate, they need different communication tools to understand these products. Amrut Zarnu is designed considering special needs of illiterate women, which consists of a T.V., a Video and audio cassettes giving information about different schemes, in a mobile van. This mobile van goes in a slums or a chawls, shows videos, encourage dialogues and discussion.
The ultimate objective of the "Zarna" is to increase outreach of Sewa Bank services to more and more poor women and spread Financial Lit racy and Business education of poor women at their door-steps.
It also gives a information about different programmes of Sewa Bank like "Sahiyaro Utsav", other meetings including Annual General Meeting. In short,
" Amrut Zarnu is a Communication cum Marketing tool, regularly going at the door steps of existing and potential members of Sewa Bank.
This programm was started in October-2005 and has reached 204 areas and covered 5707 women.
Information about Amrut Zarnu
Amrut Zarnu is the most important activity of Sewa Bank. In this activity there is mobile van which goes in different areas five days in a week. The van contents 29" colour TV, CD and cassette player, Generator, big umbrella, carpet and posters. In this Amrut Zarnu explanation of Bank's activity given to the participants, History of the Sewa Bank, Objectives of Bank, Services of Bank, Schemes of Bank, How can they join with the Bank, What are the benefits in different schemes. How to save money? Motive of this activity is to reach more and more people who do not know about the Sewa Bank and its services.
Objectives of Amrut Zarnu
Primary Objectives
To make women aware about the different schemes of Sewa Bank like
Savings
Credit
Insurance
Training of Financial Counseling
Automated Teller Machine
Retirement Benefit Pension Plane
Secondary Objectives
To motivate women towards future planning and Savings
To make women understand for increasing their savings with hard work and cut down by their wasteful expenditure
To motivate women for save their money for their old age in UTI pension plan.
To provide the information of main activities of Sewa Bank as well as the Non financial services of Sewa Bank.
