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...

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...

It’s rainy season in Nepal at this time of year and I am overseeing a staff training workshop for our partner microfinance institution in the Grameen Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI) tool. This survey tool is based on national living standards data for Nepal and will be used by Nirdhan Utthan Bank to help them target clients of a certain poverty level as well as...

Mary Grace Legada is a 32 year old mother of three kids. A year ago she ran a vegetable stall in her local market, and now operates her own mini-convenience (‘sari sari’) store. To date she has had three loans funded by Good Return, and has repaid two of them on time. Her most recent loan was just funded on February 1, 2012. Her story highlights the...

Ms. Lah was interviewed by Viengmany (Project Officer, WE Laos) who completed the client satisfaction survey. Ms. Lah is married with 3 children and lives in Nonsuong village and is a new member of Vanmai SCU. So far everything is good (but not the best). Ms. Lah would like the credit committee to visit her house to collect the data so she can get a loan – she has...