The Workshop on Combination between Health Protection and Microfinance Activities Posted: Jun 23,2010
Recently, a delegation from the TYM Fund attended the workshop on combining health protection with microfinance activities which was organized in the Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (CARD), in the Philippines. There were 20 participants of 9 microfinance organizations from Laos, Cambodia, Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam.
Funded by the “Freedom from Hunger”, the workshop provided to the participants with the methods of approaching health protection for customers. Accordingly, microfinance organizations can approach this issue through 4 different programs as healthcare education, loans for heath treatment, encouraging savings for healthcare and joining with public and private health care providers to sell medicine for customers with the reasonable prices.
In addition, the workshop also concentrated on discussing opportunities, challenges and possible adaptations when combining healthcare programs with microfinance programs of the organizations in the region and around the world. At the workshop, CARD – Philippines, one of the five organizations which have successfully implemented this combination, shared with participants the goals and measures for implementation in order to provide, support and satisfy customers who are originally poor, or low-income people.
Through learning and sharing experiences with other participants at the workshop, TYM Fund plans to further study and transform contents of the program into long-term development programs in the coming time with the aim to support women to have more knowledge and awareness of protecting their health and that of their families.
