microcredit and women's empowerment | pep bonet

In many developing countries, self-employed represents more than 50 percent of the labor force. Access to small amounts of credit at reasonable interest rates allows poor people to move from initial, perhaps tiny, income-generating activities to small micro-enterprises. Microfinance is a long-term sustainable approach to poverty alleviation as opposed to a one-time gift.

By entrusting local women with manageable short-term loans, to have the opportunity to help themselves and to break the cycle of poverty and providing independent sources of income outside home, microcredit tends to reduce economic dependency of the women on husbands and thus help enhance autonomy. Microcredit has given social responsibility to women. Now more assertive of their rights they are a positive asset to society, and an economic engine.

Step by step, solidarity work pays off. Despite poverty, despite discrimination, progress is possible. They are the hope of salvation of a society in permanent crisis. Against all odds these women build prosperity in an environment of inequality.

This project is realized in collaboration with Treball Solidari (http://www.treballsolidari.org/)

Pep Bonet has, throughout his career, developed several long term projects focusing on social issues in the developing world.
"Microcredit and Women's Empowerment" follows the stories of women who have gained and acknowledged a rightful place in their communities.

women and microcredit in morocco

With the help of low-interest micro-credit loans, many poor Moroccans, including mostly women from rural areas, have been able to escape poverty and start their own businesses. Those who live on less than 2 dollars a day represent 19% of the population in the dispersed rural areas of Morocco.
© Pep Bonet
November 2011

el futuro en sus manos

Poverty is worse in indigenous areas of Guatemala (Mayan ethnic groups), where the word "future" is equivalent to constant improvement. Self-employed become the true engines of community dynamics. In the department of Quetzaltenango, women live a situation of double marginalization. The payment of labour in the rice farms, coffee or sugar is lower than in men, they are paid less for being a woman and also less because they are Indigenous.
© Pep Bonet
September 2011

desafiando al destino

At the heart of the Andes are women who have made out of their survival a positive fight. Betty, Cecilia Manizales, Melanie, Eufenia, Elba. These are the names of personal goals, a daily effort to challenge a destination: poverty. Thanks to microcredit, their dream of progress is already a reality.
© Pep Bonet
September 2011

microcredit and women's empowerment

Microfinance is a long-term sustainable approach to poverty alleviation as opposed to a one-time gift. By entrusting local women with manageable short-term loans, to have the opportunity to help themselves and to break the cycle of poverty.
© Pep Bonet
October 2010