Saving habits among women in the recent days are very rare and depleting. The olden golden practice of saving handful of rice has faded away from our memories. On the other hand, unnecessary celebrations, luxurious living, ambitious desires and exorbitant interests have occupied the lives of common man and toughened the living worse and worse.

In order to combat money lending for interest problems among the Sri Lankan refugees in India, OfERR has started forming refugee women into self-help groups in the camps. The same concept has been adopted to Sri Lanka with the formation of SHGs among returnees and IDPs.

Each group consisted of  12  to 20 members and they meet  twice in  a month and collect savings of Rs.50/- to Rs.100/- The accumulated savings are deposited in the bank account and the saving of money was used to circulate among the members to cater  their  family needs.  Through   the circulation  of  loan,  the  SHGs   were instrumental in protecting the members & their families from high interest loans and exploitations by money lenders.

In this path,  14 women in Nallur village in  Jaffna has been  organized  through an orientation program, to be formed as SHGs.They have been oriented on the SHGs concept, objective, functions and activities.  The objective of this formation was to develop  and  improve  their  capacities  as  a  group  with  greater unity  and  self-determination to march towards holistic socio-economic development.

Further, it has been planned to provide microenterprise training to enable them to undertake a small business, to strengthen their subsidiary and permanent income generation.