The Awutu Bawjiase Rural Bank in the Central Region has granted over 786 million cedis in the form of loans to about 2,188 women under its "Credit With Education" (CWE) scheme.The scheme, apart from helping to alleviate the poverty of women and inculcating the habit of saving also aims at educating them on environmental and domestic hygiene, family planning,homemanagement, the HIV/AIDS and ecological protection.

According to the Supervising Manager, Mr Augustus Yankey, the women have been organised into 76 working groups to facilitate loan recovery.

Addressing a staff durbar at Awutu Bawjiase, he said the women had saved over 113 million cedis with the Bank as at the end of September this year and commended leaders of the groups for exhibiting a high sense of credibility. Mr Emmanuel Osei, Chairman of the Board of Directors asked the workers not to be complacent with their achievement and urged them to maintain discipline and honesty to project the good image of the Bank. He said DANIDA and other non-governmental organisations were assisting the Bank to operate a micro-credit scheme for women in the Adeiso area, and said a "susu" scheme introduced recently was progressing steadily and urged them to sustain it.