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The
newsletter of the Ecumenical Church Loan Fund
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ECLOF board members must be committed, cause oriented
and competent.
These are three of the ten ‘commandments’
or characteristics for board members listed by Thomas
Kandasami at the ECLOF Asia Regional Workshop held
in Sri Lanka at the end of March 2000 (see page 4
for full report).
Mr
Kandasami, from India, is an expert in the financial
and organisational management of not-for-profit organisations.
He outlined his ‘commandments’ during a
thorough and lively presentation on the roles and
responsibilities of ECLOF board members and staff.
He said board members must also be creative, challenging,
courageous, consistent, able to handle conflict and
contemplate new ideas and practices, and have a real
contribution to make to the work of ECLOF.
Asia
Regional Workshop Meets  
The latest Asia Regional Workshop took place during
the last week of March 2000, in Watala, Sri Lanka. Delegates
from Sri Lanka, the Philippines and Myanmar attended
along with representatives from the NECs of Kenya, Zambia,
Armenia and Bolivia, and resource persons from Sri Lanka
and India. ECLOF clients and members of NGOs in
Sri
Lanka plus a representative of the YWCA in Pakistan
also took part. Women made up over half of those at
the workshop.
New
publication introduces ECLOF
For the first time, Ecumenical Church Loan Fund (ECLOF)
policies and guidelines, as well as details of the
ECLOF vision and mission are now available in one
document. In 1996, its 50th anniversary year, ECLOF
formed a working group to review ECLOF policies and
recent experiences in the light of current trends
in Micro Finance and the involvement of the ecumenical
movement.
Meet
ECLOF Clients
 Mrs
G.P Sriyalatha is Sri Lankan and the mother of three children.
In 1988, Mrs Sriyalatha and her family had to leave their
home because their town was deliberately flooded by the
construction of the new Kapatha dam. She and her family
now live near the reservoir created by the dam.
When
Mrs Sriyalatha’s husband became ill, the family found
it very hard to make ends meet so Mrs. Sriyalatha sold
a quarter of an acre of their land for Rs50,000 (US$695).
With this money, she purchased a tank in which she began
to raise decorative tropical fish.
Armenia is a country that has been deeply affected by
the fall of the Soviet Union and the corresponding lack
of markets for its products and subsequent collapse
of industry.
This,
plus the war with Azerbijan over Ngorno-Karabagh (and
the related economic blockade by Turkey) and the devastating
earthquake of 1989 means the country has faced very
difficult circumstances. The limited avenues for import
or export are through Georgia and Iran. The Armenian
genocide of 1920 is still very much alive in the public
consciousness, as is the accompanying loss of land in
Turkey.
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