Imagine if every time you went to cook a simple meal, the entire room filled with smoke, the pots went black with soot, and ash hung in the air for hours afterwards, making it difficult to breathe and aggravating your children’s asthma.   For Laxmi Gurung, this was her reality. Not only was it difficult to breathe while the stove was on, but it was also...

Candy was the final woman I met with on my trip to the Philippines in January. Soft spoken with an ever-present and contagious smile, she is prominent in my memory for two reasons. The first: how she carefully wrote “plain housewife” as her occupation. The second: the joy and pride she felt from having a microfinance loan, because it meant that someone believed...

In our line of work, there are often discussions around the real benefits of microfinance for low-income households. And it’s true that in some parts of the world, microfinance has questionable outcomes. But when you’re facing the beneficiaries of microfinance services and listening to their stories, doubts about the benefits of microfinance completely...

You may have seen the lovely face of Apsara on many of our Christmas communications and graphics. We thought it was about time to share her story! Read the whole article for a video at the end… Apsara (34) of Nepal is the mother of two. Her husband, Ramesh, is a teacher at the local high school. They are financially secure, and have a comfortable home which...

Kalati is from the ‘Alakifonua centre in Tonga. She retails products that her daughter is able to send her from America, and also uses her loan from SPBD (Good Return’s partner microfinance institution in Tonga and Fiji) to buy more stock for the shop. Her daughter also sends her small amounts of money, as Kalati takes care of her children while she is overseas...

Siunipa of the Vaini branch in Tonga became conscious of her dream to improve her family’s lives after the first Good Return financial literacy class she took. It made her aware that she can actually do something concrete to achieve her dreams. During the sharing, Siunipa said, “My diary helped me to look at my dream, my financial goals, and to do something...