By Feizal Samath
AGBOPURA, Sri Lanka, May 25 2000 (IPS)

When Padmini Jayaweera walks down the dusty mud roads of this Sri Lankan village, a passing motorcyclist or tractor driver usually stops by and offers to take her where she wants to go.

Everyone in Agbopura knows Jayaweera and what she is doing for the village and others clustered around it, close to the island nation’s eastern coast and some 220 km away from the Sri Lankan capital.

The village women look forward to the daily visits of the portly, 39-year-old widow who has shown them how to manage their biggest problems.

Agbopura lies along the main highway linking the northcentral town of Kurunegala to the eastern port city of Trincomalee, about 20 km away, and is typical of the Sri Lankan countryside.

One can see a few shops selling daily household provisions and some large houses on entering the village. Walking further in, one can see signs of chronic poverty.

But things are no longer as bad as they were as can be seen in the smiling faces of the women who greet Jayaweera.

The women thank Jayaweera for changing their lives. “Padmini Akka (sister) helps us a lot,” a village elder says. Village women describe her as “an asset to Agbopura.”

They blame the 17-year-old ethnic war in northeastern Sri Lanka, not too far from here, and alcohol for their troubles.

Tamil Tiger rebel activity in the neighbourhood led to work stoppages and eventual closure, seven years ago, of the Agbopura sugar factory which had nearly 3,000 workers.

“That was a big blow to the village as locals provided various services to the factory,” says Jayaweera. Sugarcane farmers had to switch to the rice crop or fishing which did not fetch enough for their needs.

It was specially tough for the women who had to feed families with almost no income and cope with men who increasingly turned to liquor in frustration.

“Except for three or four men in my village, the rest of the men drink heavily and often beat up their wives,” says housewife Yalaranga Leelawathie.

“Alcoholism is a serious problem,” says Jayaweera as she sits inside Leelawathie’s small house. Other women in the house recall the sad story of a woman who stabbed her husband to death to escape his frequent drunken physical assaults.

In the early days, Jayaweera talked to the women, persuading them to band together to find a way out of their troubles. They listened to her suggestion to pool whatever little money they could into a fund that would help women start income generating schemes.

For this, the women set up a group which meets periodically to accept contributions, lend out money and give advice on how to use this. Inspired by their success, more groups have been set up.

Jayaweera’s group, known as the Agbopura Women’s Foundation, is now running schemes to train women in a a variety of occupations.

Using the loans, women have become rice farmers, raise chickens and fish, and make curd or sweetmeats for town markets.

The savings and credit scheme is rated among Sri Lanka’s most successful. According to Vasantha Samaraweera, deputy director at the state- owned women’s bureau in Colombo, the performance of Jayaweera’s group is one of the best in terms of returns and loan recoveries.

“She has turned a 200,000-rupee (2,700 U.S. dollar) scheme into a 600,000-rupee savings and loans programme and we are absolutely pleased with the success of this project,” says Samaraweera, who visited Agbopura in April to organise a training workshop for the women.

The Women’s Bureau had granted the seed capital of 200,000 rupees to the Agbopura women.

This year, Jayaweera’s group gave a 20,000-rupee (270 dollars) loan to another group set up by Leelawathie, which in turn handed out 2,000 rupees each to the poorest women in the village for their farming needs. Loans are typically given at five percent interest and beneficiaries return the money soon after the harvest.

Jayaweera is herself an entrepreneur who makes a decent income by making and selling curd. Curd pots are stacked inside her house and outside under a thatch roof hut, waiting to be picked up for delivery to Kandy, a bustling town about 100 kilometres. She earns about 10,000 rupees (135 dollars) a month.

“We want to make the women self-sufficient and as independent as possible,” she says. For those who find it difficult to help themselves, her group is ready to lend a helping hand.

She shows four small, two-room houses built by volunteers for the very poor families. For this, the women went round the village, seeking donations of building materials — bricks, wood and cement.

Jayaweera has now set her sights on tackling one of the biggest problems in the village — alcoholism. The women’s groups are planning protest marches to force the closure of the illegal liquor shops near the village.

“This devastates families. We need to do something to stop this menace,” says Jayaweera.

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