The study of communication characteristics of rural people organization initiated by non-governmental organization: Credit Union Group in Samoeng District, Chiang Mai

Abstract

The objectives of this research was to study the credit union groups in Samoeng District, Chiang Mai, which was one of the rural people organizations initiated by Fridish Nouman Foundation, the non-governmental organization. The study concentrated on the general characteristics and the communication activities of these groups. The respondents of 71 were the people in the village number 4 and 6 of Tambon Samoeng Nua and village number 1 and 8 of Tambon Samoeng Tai, whereby the credit union groups were arisen, selected by the Simple Random Sampling method. The data were collected by interviewing according to a recommended questionaire. The findings showed that about 79 percent of the respondents found the credit union group can help improvement of profits from agricultural activities. About 65 percent got advantage from the group in term of loan and 93 percent got advantage in term of credit.

Internal communication activities included meeting and discussion problems with chairperson or committee of the group within the previous three months. About 59 precent attained the meeting 3 times about a main issue of saving. Most of them discussed problems with chairman and committee of the group but got no advantage.

About access and exposure to information characteristics, 82.81 percent of the respondents got advantages from farm broadcasting and only 28.57 percent from newspaper. About 27 percent had attained training on farming in the past 12 months. The respondents of 93.88 percent perceived scope of benefits of group membership. The main assistance remarked was access to credit.

Study of comparison among the respondents in various aspect. It was found that some socio-economic characteristics between the active group respondents and less respondents and between the chairman group and the rest of the group were significantly different. It was also obvious that the socio-economic score, the characteristic of access and exposure to external source of information and the internal communication between the active group respondent and the less-active group respondent were significantly different.