Microfinance has come into the news lately, in part because of this new book and in part, because there are issues with some microfinance programs. Microfinance is often part of the financial sectors that have gotten themselves in a mess. Like them, there is over lending, over leveraging and just plain bad management. I've seen some of these. But I've also seen some powerful examples of what microfinance can do. Check out SEWA Bank on my links, for example. 800,000 women in a trade union with a cooperative, small scale pharmacies, literacy, marketing, producer and service cooperatives. They even offer pension schemes and daily savings collection. Most of these incredibly savvy and resourceful women are illiterate. Much of my work has been with savings groups and cooperatives but I've also seen some very effective microfinance programs. KixiCredito, Angola, also on my links is one of these examples. Polarizations are provocative but in the real world, it's messier and more complex. There is always good, bad and ugly. But don't take my word for it. Ask the women themselves.

Click on the Related Link below for an interview that I did with the Halifax Media Coop on these issues.
  |  related link

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Some graphic facilitation at the plenary.

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Before it breaks
even before it
begins with the
ache of sky, its
low belly drum roll. Powder
blue holds its own
against barrelling grey.
Could be a rumble, baby.

Air muck-thick, bloated. Weight of
stout in champagne. Sink in
the spray. A whiff of dirt.
Who knows but I trust
this heft.

Spit and silence rock the
tender trees,
could take this
anywhere
dripping green, almost
water and well
before the floods on
the dewy lip of
riot.

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Peter Taylor (IDRC formerly IDS, University of Sussex) and I just finished an article on the transformative potential of arts in learning and social change. It draws on examples of poetry, creative writing and experiences of innovative practice shared by adult educators through an e-forum from Africa, Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America. The paper provides a conceptual frame to explore tensions in adult learning between the mytho-poetic and the critical-rational, and between the individual and the collective. It will be published in the Journal of Adult and Contiuing Education in October.Contact me if you'd like a copy.

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