Renowned author and journalist Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos uses her talent for investigative reporting to take us deep into the poorest villages in India. Yet, far from being passive victims of their circumstances, the women who live there have joined forces and are making astute use of microcredit to break the cycle of poverty.
Microcredit was made famous by Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and consists of very small loans made primarily to women for the production of essential commodities or to start small businesses. Based on a number of trips to India between 2001 and 2008, Arnopoulos shows her sense of solidarity and desire for authenticity by sharing the daily life of these villagers. This first-person account of her extensive travels focuses primarily on these women's inspiring success stories. After witnessing many such situations first-hand, she believes these villages have a potential strength equal to that of the modern, high-tech cities in India
L’auteure et journaliste Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos propose, dans la tradition des grands reportages, une incursion fascinante dans l’univers de villageoises indiennes parmi les plus pauvres. Loin d’être des victimes, ces femmes, très souvent illettrées mais dotées de qualités de leadership exceptionnelles, se regroupent et font appel au microcrédit afin de briser le cycle de la pauvreté.
Popularisé par Muhammad Yunus, un économiste bangladais, prix Nobel de la paix 2006, le microcrédit consiste à accorder de très petits prêts, principalement à des femmes, pour la production de denrées essentielles ou la création d’entreprises. Au gré de multiples séjours en Inde entre 2001 et 2008, Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos, qui ne ménage pas ses efforts pour donner originalité et authenticité à son récit écrit à la première personne, a partagé le quotidien de ces femmes de tous âges à la solidarité exemplaire. Vivant parmi elles, parcourant des kilomètres à pied, en rickshaw, en autobus ou en train, l’auteure a recueilli le témoignage émouvant de leur réussite. Elle montre ainsi que les villages indiens, qui comptent au total quelque 750 millions d’individus, représentent une force potentielle aussi grande que celle des villes modernes de haute technologie dont les médias internationaux ont tant vanté les mérites.
Read this book! The women described within these pages demonstrate an extraordinary courage and determination to not only survive, but to thrive. Kismet Dyment , Environmental Book Review
Well-documented, eminently readable and uplifting. Maya Khankhoje , Herizons Magazine
Sleeping on hut floors and traveling on rickety buses and dusty rickshaws, she writes of her intimate interactions with the women of India with warmth and optimism… Sarah Fletcher , Montreal Review of Books
A welcome alternative approach ... alive with carefully researched examples ... bears witness to the agency gained by women in self-help groups. Jamie Charlebois , Department of Economics, Dalhousie University
I enjoyed learning about Sheila's experiences in India and found it helpful in furthering my understanding of the important role that women play in the economic welfare in so many places. Eleanor Shepherd , Good Reads
The first-person account of her extensive travels focuses primarily on Indian rural women's inspiring success stories. The Weekly Voice
Small loans can be life-changing. Between 2001 and 2008, author and journalist Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos traveled over the span of 21 months to the most impoverished parts of rural India to investigate the transformative capacity of microfinance in combating poverty. Saris on Scooters: How Microcredit Is Changing Village India is the captivating result. Elisa Bimbaum , See Change
A vivid and fascinating account of the struggles and achievements of remarkable women who, though often illiterate, have overcome great obstacles in building businesses and cooperatives using small loans. The book is also entertaining, thanks to Arnopoulos' quest to understand a vast and baffling country she obviously loves… Ann Diamond Writer
…A well written, inspiring read, perfect for any sustainable traveler interested in the compelling stories of other people’s lives. GAP Adventures , GAP Adventures
The women truly come to life… the traffic story in Hyderabad is really funny. Josh Freed Montreal Gazette Columnist
I can't be the only person who was overwhelmed by a sense of the absurd when Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh and the organization he founded, Grameen Bank, were awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006. Bob Gordon , The Record
…a lively full-length book … including striking accounts of Hindu and Muslim women working to avoid con flict in the face of an active attempt to stoke it by polarized communal groups, politicians and the police, and of a stay in a model organic farm in the foothills of the Himalayas to take a two-week course on Gandhi, Cultures of Non-violence and Globalization. , The Literary Review of Canada
She tells inspiring stories of incredible women living at the bottom of the human totem pole who used microcredit to lift themselves out of abject poverty and transformed lives and society in villages across India. Sirjjan Preet , The Book Review
These women are living examples of sustainable solutions to poverty. For decades the world has donated billons to fund megaprojects, while also inadvertently supporting corruption and oppressive regimes. This book will make us question how we help people in other societies. Laurie O'Donnell , Hudson/St. Lazare Gazette
I have always written about marginalized people. In Montreal as a journalist I worked undercover in textile factories, for example, and wrote about the exploitation of immigrant women. Later, I became fascinated by the potential of microcredit to empower poor women when an Indian friend introduced me to Dalit (formerly untouchables) women in parched Indian villages who used small loans and organic agriculture to make the deserts bloom. Here was an opportunity to write a success story book! This led me to other Indian villages and slums where I met spirited women who refused to be victims and instead were banding together in microcredit groups to beat poverty and also promote social change.
Although about microcredit, my book is also a glimpse into the Indian side of an unsung Third World Women’s Movement of grassroots women working for a more egalitarian and flourishing world. Women I met were, for example stopping child labour and child marriage, in one case by forming a village youth group that young couples had to consult before their wedding could take place. Under the NGO Gram Abhyudaya Mandali, cooperatives of Dalit women were running a sand contract and getting ready to launch a full-fledged dairy. High-caste male bureaucrats, goons and rival contractors tried to destroy them but the women came up with brilliant solutions to outfox their adversaries, made money, and showed that they were first-rate entrepreneurs that could overcome.
Preserving their community during a political crisis was the work of poor Muslim women in a handicraft cooperative under an organization called Confederation of Voluntary Associations providing microcredit to the poor in Hyderabad. In full burqas, the women formed a chain to stop a potential riot provoked by Hindu police against their husbands and sons after Friday prayers at a mosque in the Muslim quarter of the old city of Hyderabad.
I have always written about marginalized people. In Montreal as a journalist I worked undercover in textile factories, for example, and wrote about the exploitation of immigrant women. Later, I became fascinated by the potential of microcredit to empower poor women when an Indian friend introduced me to Dalit (formerly untouchables) women in parched Indian villages who used small loans and organic agriculture to make the deserts bloom. Here was an opportunity to write a success story book! This led me to other Indian villages and slums where I met spirited women who refused to be victims and instead were banding together in microcredit groups to beat poverty and also promote social change.
Puriben is an illiterate woman who was starving in the desert with her husband and family because of no work on the land due to drought and natural disasters. Under the Self Employed Women’s Association in Gujarat she became a barefoot manager and village leader organizing production of first-class hand-embroidered merchandise now selling on Indian and world markets. A born activist, she fought and won against male elders in her village who at first tried to stop her and her team of artisans from travelling outside the village to sell their embroidered clothes. Later, when the municipality failed to provide water to her village, she made them deliver after she led 200 women balancing empty clay pots on their heads on a 70-kilometre protest march from her village to the municipal water board. To show-case her embroidery skills, on behalf of her company, Puriben made regular sales trips to Delhi and cities in the West. But she was never seduced by the attractions of the urban consumer society and continued to value community life in her small Indian village of Vauva.
The most memorable response about my book came from the leader of one of the major organizations I profiled in my book. When he read the chapters that involved the women in his NGO, he said: You have made literature out of the lives of the women.
Award-winning journalist and author Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos talks about her new collection of short stories. It's about Montreal women from a variety of cultural backgrounds, at home and in other countries, including India, Tunisia, Morocco, Portugal and Mexico, and how they manage to succeed and thrive despite the obstacles they face.
Author Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos tells us about the 21 months she spent in India meeting women who used microcredit to change their lives and the lives of others.
Montreal investigative journalist and author Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos will talk about her new book Saris on Scooters – How Microcredit is Changing Village India. She talks about the time she spent in villages with grassroots organizations, and Dalit women who are using small loans and their determination to win greater financial independence and gain respect for their rights.
Depuis 2001, l’auteure et journaliste Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos a effectué de longs séjours dans l’Inde des villages. Dans son livre Saris en scooter : la révolution du microcrédit dans l’Inde des villages, elle décrit la vie de villageoises indiennes, très souvent illettrées, mais dotées de qualités de leadership exceptionnelles et qui réussissent, grâce au microcrédit, à briser le cycle de la pauvreté.
As CEO of Women’s World Banking, I’m often asked, why women? The answer is simple, really. Women pay back their loans at higher rates than men, which makes them a more reliable investment. Women invest in the welfare of their families significantly more than men, spending more on children’s education and health, which is critical to long-term economic development.Mary Ellen Iskenderian, President and CEO, Women's World Banking