“I sent Pattanarak staff (to Sangkhlaburi) to survey villagers’ interest and attitudes about savings groups,” says Dr. Seri. “They came back with the following information:

1. Displaced villagers agreed that saving is a good idea but were concerned that it was something only the rich could do.
   
2. Because most people in their community did not have regular income or even money to buy food every day, they wondered how the poor could save.
   
3. There was an attitude that saving was not suitable because they were more familiar with taking out loans.
4. In the rare case that the interest rate was low, they believed a loan–not savings–could improve their quality of life.

The surveys provided us with valuable information. We discovered the attitude of the communities, and learned about their painful experience with past saving groups (unclear repayment terms, defaults on loans, and fraudulent lenders).

The idea for starting savings groups had to wait for a suitable time to begin,” he says.

“The only thing I could do was to continue telling success stories from other areas to anyone who would listen. I started by sharing with Pattanarak staff, and volunteers, and then with community leaders from our target areas.

Storytelling did not immediately sell the idea, but I continued to share with the hope that someday, there would be enough momentum in a community to start a savings group.”

Dr. Seri built trust and waited. But while he waited, his organization, the Pattanarak Foundation, was not idle. It was heavily involved in addressing other issues–like teaching villagers in the Border area how to grow vegetables for household consumption.

“We trained villagers to make compost by using effective microorganisms, and during the training, we shared about the potential benefits of savings groups.”

He explains: “Communities along the border are familiar with foraging for food from the forest, but in recent years, the forestry department had turned most of the forests into protected areas.

Forest rangers started patrolling the protected areas to ensure that people did not plant or forage anymore. So the people then began to rely on food from the markets in town.

As most of our target communities work as daily laborers, earning enough money to purchase food became a huge burden.

The pressure often resulted in one or more family members leaving to find work in another area and sending money home. In some cases, parents even felt that they needed their children to work. At the same time, most families did not know how to produce their own food.”

Being able to grow their own food solved many difficult challenges, and it paved the way to discuss savings groups.  When they were ready to learn about it, “the savings group idea opened their minds to solve the problems of their community in new ways.”