Live-in- Field Experience Spring 2013 LFE-201

Prepared for Asst. prof. Talim Hossain School of social science and humanities Independent University, Bangladesh Prepared by S.M. Imran Hasan ID# 1020878 Group#2 Date of Submission: 31-01-2013 LFE Spring 2013

LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL

January 29, 2013 Tapash Kumar Paul Department of Economics Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) Bashundhara, Dhaka. Sub: Letter of Transmittal for the assigned LFE report, spring 2013 Sir, I, the undersigned, would like to submit herewith the Live-in-Field Experience (LFE) Report Spring 2013 for your perusal. Upon completion of LFE study on Jogonnathpur (Gu Gu Jari Para) in Thakurgaon district from prepared. By using questionnaire survey, observation, and preparing case stories, we tried our best to learn about the demography, geography, social condition and change, economy and agriculture, the impact of seasonality on various aspects of agriculture, health and environment, and the market and haat serving the needs of the village. The analysis of data gathered from our field survey helped us in understanding the lives of the villagers. We would be glad to clarify any matter whenever you require so. Sincerely yours, SM Imran Hasan ID# 1020878 January 3, 2013 to 13 January 2013 , this report has been

ACKNOLEDGEMENTS
We express our honest gratitude to our teachers, Tapash Kumar Paul, Nusrat Farah, and Sadia Haque for their restless guidance in the field.Our special thanks go to our teachers, Professor Haroun Er Rashid and Asst. Prof. Talim Hossain for educating us on various aspects of LFE. We also owe many thanks Manab Kallyan Parished (MKP) staffs, the most hospitable people. Without the constant help and guidance of our assigned LFE monitors, the study would not have been this thorough. We are really grateful to them. Last but not the least, our honest gratitude goes to the inhabitants of Jogonnathpur (Gu Gu jari Para), for their warm and hospitable treatment. Without their enthusiastic cooperation, it was not possible to make the study successful.

INTRODUCTION:
Live field experience (LFE) is a mandatory course for all students of Independent University, Bangladesh. Students have to go to a specific rural area to experience the life style of rural people. Our group was taken to Thakurgaon, a newly added area for doing LFE; we were given specific villages to understand the people of that area. The area which we were given is in village named Jogonnathpur village. It was a para called Gu Gu Jariparapara. When we first thought about going to the village and talking to the people there we thought the people would be unfriendly also they would not co-operate with us. Afterwards our thoughts were changed, they were very social, informative and of course friendly. It helped us to know the people, their culture and lifestyle very vividly. We know that about 74% of the population in Bangladesh is in the rural area it is very important as business school students to know and understand how the rural economy works. Their culture, social norms, educational level everything is correlated. Bangladesh has an agro based economy it contributes to 30% of the country's GDP and employed around 60% of the total labor force. The area we went to was also agriculture based in our assigned Para out of 25 people we surveyed, 12 people were agriculturist. LFE made us realize how important the farmers of our country are and how much effort they are giving to support this country. Through LFE we have seen the real picture of the rural area. The farmers of the rural area were never in that good condition. They have always been in dire straits. They were struggling to keep up the supplies of food all over the countries. However the scenarios are changing all over the countries. Now a day people are not starving anymore. Their income had increased comparing to the immediate post liberation period. The number of floating people had decreased. That indicates that fundamental needs like food, clothing, and living places are not burning issues anymore. But medical facilities and education are not adequate.

Recently, NGOs have got involved and are offering many services to develop the situation of villagers. And they also are offering micro credits and trainings which are improving their economic situation.

OBJECTIVES:
LIVE-IN-FIELD experience is not only an academic course but also a platform to discover the root of ourselves. It can also be said as Change in life experience. Until we experienced it we could not realize the true importance of this courses objective. It is hard to limit its objective in words; the objective of this course is and will be used throughout our entire life. It made us understand who we are? What is our root? It introduced us with ourselves. Staying in city places and living a robotic life we almost forgot the reality of our belongingness to this country and to the country people. LFE has opened our eyes to observe the real picture. We were taken to Thakurgaon, a newly added area for doing LFE; we were given specific villages to understand the people of that area. The area which we were given is in village named Jogonnathpur village. It was a para called Gu Gu Jaripara.

Our study objectives were following:

Our main objective was to find out information about Rural Economy & Development, which included following specific objectives 1. Farm and non farm economy. 2. Infrastructure, economic change & development. 3. Analyzing the microcredit functions. 4. Income distribution among the villagers.

LIMITATIONS:
A certain precinct within which friars were allowed to beg or exercise their functions also the time during which they were permitted to exercise their functions in such a district. This is quite normal to face and handle some limitations during the program. But the art is how nicely limitations are handled appropriately.

The first obstacle was the weather; it was hard for us to work in such a low temperature, because we are not used to face this level of cold. The fogs and the mist in the morning made it quite difficult to get up early in the morning and proceed for the survey.

In the first day at village the villagers were confused about our motive and felt inconvenient to talk to us. We felt lack of Communication.

The respondents were not sometimes comfortable to answer the questions as they felt unsafe to talk about the topic. As we surveyed the respective village during the working hours of the day, most of the male were out of their houses. As a result the quantity of female respondents is higher which may reflect in getting biased answers regarding some questions. There was a shortage of informative sources as most of the respondents were confused.

METHODOLOGY:
Methodology is system of broad principals or rules from which specific methods or procedures may be derived to understand different situations or solve different problems within the scope of a particular discipline. Unlike an algorithm, a methodology is not a formula but a set of practices. As this study required the participation of human respondents, specifically human resource professionals, certain ethical issues were addressed. The consideration of these ethical issues was necessary for the purpose of ensuring the privacy as well as the safety of the participants. Among the significant ethical issues that were considered in the research process include consent and confidentiality. In order to secure the consent of the selected participants, the researcher relayed all important details of the study, including its aim and purpose. By explaining these important details, the respondents were able to understand the importance of their role in the completion of the research. The respondents were also advised that they could withdraw from the study even during the process. With this, the participants were not forced to participate in the research. The confidentiality of the participants was also ensured by not disclosing their names or personal information in the research. Only relevant details that helped in answering the research questions were included.

PROFILE OF THIS VILLAGE:

Location of the Village: At first we went to MKP, Thakugaon where we were assorted to different villages. Our village is Jogonnathpur, which is situated around 2 kilometers on the right side of MKP. A brief description of the village: Jogonnathpur is a village near Thakugaon town. It takes 15 minutes by rickshaw. It is a very big village consisting of around 15-20 paras. My para was gu gu jari para, which is in jonnathpur union, Thakurgaon. once upon a time there were a lot of gu gu birds in there. There is a big pond which is surrounded by bamboo forest and there are a lot of gu gu birds still now. This is why the para is called gu gu jari para.

Village Map

BANKING SYSTEM OF GU GU JARIPARA PARA:

In Simpler term micro means small and credit means loans. Microcredit is the extension of very small loans (microloans) to those in poverty designed to spur entrepreneurship. These individuals lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history and therefore cannot meet even the most minimal qualifications to gain access to traditional credit. Microcredit is a part of microfinance, which is the provision of a wider range of financial services to the very poor. Microcredit is a financial innovation that is generally considered to have originated with the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. In this country, it has successfully enabled extremely impoverished people to engage in self-employment projects that allow them to generate an income and, in many cases, begin to build wealth and exit poverty.

There are many NGOs which are giving micro credit to the villagers. I found many NGOs those are Brac, Grameen Bank, Asa, Islami Bank etc. We tried our best to find out each and everything about micro credit to find out the real picture of Micro credit schemes.

Sources of loan:
While conducting our PRA in our para, we have found that there were a number of NGOs (NonGovernmental Organizations) which are active in the Taltolipara and provide micro-credits to the villagers. Such as GRAMEEN Bank BRAC (Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) ISLAMI Bank KRISHI Bank ASA

Though majority of the people of Gu Gu Jaripara are not that poor but most of them have taken micro credits or loans. So, the NGOs are playing a very important role in changing the socioeconomic structure and development of the overall para. We have conducted our survey among 20 households in Gu Gu Jaripara.

Household Took Loans or Not

Source: LFE Field survey, 2013

Households Having Savings or Not

Sample size: 20 households Yes

No 16%

Yes 84%

28% No 72%

Facilities provided by different NGOs:

We found that mostly the middle class and poor class people are the loan takers from different NGOs operating in Jogonnathpur village. The purpose is different in different sectors. The following table extracts the facilities provided by different NGOs operating in Jogonnathpur village.

Name of the Institutions Particulars Amount Of Loan given (Tk.) Collateral

Grameen Bank

BRAC

ASA

Islami Bank

Tk.1000-1000000

Tk.5000-400000

Tk. 6000-150000

Tk. 5000-10000

Nil

Land Documentation Literacy, Recommendation of figurehead Sanitation, Business Loan, Hygene, cattle

Nil

Land Documentation Taking Loan

Requirements for Membership

Must be literate, have less than 50 satak land Agriculture, Poultry, Buy vehicle, establish bakery, Education Moderately Satisfied Increase the time for repayment, seize collateral

Literacy, Recommendation of figurehead Poultry, Cattle fattening

Purpose of loan

Agriculture

Satisfaction

Partially satisfied

Trust is increasing

Satisfaction is decreasing Increase the time for repayment, change the installment size

Actions taken by institutions

Seize Collateral, seize savings, Money is deducted from the savings

deduction of money from the savings account

Purposes of Loan:
People require loans for different purposes. Most of the villagers earn their livelihood from agriculture but house building and business have the highest demand for taking loans. Along with these the people of Gu Gu Jaripara have showed different other purposes also to take loans.

Purpose of Loan
6 5 4 3 2 1 0

Source: LFE Field survey, 2013

Sample size: 20 households

Case Studies:
We got to know different stories of different people regarding their repayment of loans. Some people failed to repay the loan for various problems. But it is not a very common scenario in this locality. In the following part we have gathered some NGO loan success & failure cases. The case studies are given below-

 Successful Story: Rizina Islam, a resident of Gu Gu Jaripara, took a loan amount of Taka 1 lakh from ASA under the GOB loan group. According to the ASA procedure she had to repay this loan in 10 months. She had no savings on this loan. She took this loan for business purpose which was the rice mill. By using this loan she built her house, increased livestock and brought electricity. The interest rate charged by the ASA is 12.5% on GOB loans. But the actual rate of interest is 25%. The calculation is shown belowBorrowed amount = 100,000 Installment per month= 10,000 Installment with interest=12,500 100,000*12.5%=12,500 Number of installment= 10 Actual interest rate = ((12,500*10 - 100,000)/ 100,000) * 100 = (25,000/100,000) * 100 = 25% Ultimately, she repaid all the loans and it helped her to improve her financial condition. Unsuccessful Story: Anwar Hossain (22 years old), took a loan amount of Taka 6,000 from Brac under the Dabi loan category. According to the Brac loan procedures he had to repay his loan in 46 weeks. He had to keep a savings of Taka 22. By using this loan he brought a van with Taka 5,000 and repaid Taka 1,000 to his personal loan lenders. The interest rate charged by the Brac is 15% on Dabi loans. But the actual rate of interest is % 34.17. The calculation is shown belowBorrowed amount = Taka 6,000

Savings amount= Taka 22 per installment Installment per week= Taka 168 Installment with interest= Taka 225 6,000*15 %*( 1/4) = Taka 225 Number of installment= 46 Actual interest rate = [[{(225-50)*46}-6,000]/6,000]*100 = [{(175*46)-6,000}/6,000]*100 = (2,050/6,000)*100 = 34.17% At the end he was unable to repay his payments. As a result he had to sell his goat and repay the loan of Brac. This loan has made his financial condition very unstable.

Effects of Micro Credit on Gu Gu Jari Para:

There is no doubt that micro credit has improved the financial condition of the people of Gu Gu Jari para. Though there are very few of failure cases. We have surveyed 25 respondents and out of those people maximum has said that micro credit has changed their way of living. However all the NGOs charge higher interest rate than they state to the loaners. There were also some other hidden charges which we failed to reveal as people could not portray the actual scenario. As a result we excluded all those charges while calculating the actual interest rates. Positive & Negative Changes All our findings indicate towards significant social changes that have occurred over the last half century. We have summarized the positive and negative impact on society in the table below:

Positive changes o Education and awareness o Increased sources of earning o More employment o Empowerment of women o Telecommunication o Improved sanitation o Electricity o NGO support Negative changes o Loan dependency o Deforestation o Decreased soil fertility o Lower family bonding

CONCLUSION
In conclusions, we can see on the above information. A social change can improved the peoples life style in the village. We founded so many changes in the Jogonnathpur village of Gu Gu Jari para in the last 13years (2000 to 2013). After the liberation period, people were getting

advantages occurred by those changes by reason of different NGOs contribution.

It is very great pleasure and privilege for me that I took a part of LFE 2010 in Spring from IUB. I have learned many things from LFE. Basically most of the student of our student of our group is from urban area. We dont know much about the village and village market. So in LFE we learned a lot of things about the village market, hat and the buying behavior of the villagers. From this survey we realize that Bangladesh is mainly a country of villages and the village market plays a vital role in the life of the villagers. It is an integral part of village life. It save the villagers from the trouble of going to distant places to buy things of daily use. A village market is not only develops village life but also promote the export of the country.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
o Principles of Marketing by Philip kotler & Gary Armstrong.
o Marketing Management by Philip Kotler. o Economics: Principles, problems & problems, Campbell R. Meconnell & Stanley. Brue 11th edition. Mcgrew Hill, 1990. o Reference book: - H.W. BOYD, O.C. WALKER, Marketing management Third Edition. o www.asa.gov.bd