This year I spent time working with two umbrella Micro Finance related organations Bankers Without Borders and also Access Development Services in India. Through these organisations I worked with Village Financial Services (Website) a Micro Finance Institutions in West Bengal dealing with women in rural areas.

Village Financial Services (VFS) is a microfinance institution registered as an NBFC under Reserve Bank of India Section 45 IA. VFS began microfinance operations in 2005 with its head office at Kolkata (West Bengal). VFS has touched the lives of many thousands of poor underprivileged & backward section of our society by providing them credit for income generating activities & helping them to become economically self sufficient, sensitizing women about empowerment issues and bringing about a qualitative change in them and their families related to standard of living & their own status in the society.

VFS Mission is to strengthen the socio-economic condition of the society by providing financial and other support services mainly to the poor women in a sustainable manner and strive to yield a competitive return. VFS operates in 87 branches of 15 different districts of West Bengal, offering loans to over 230,000 clients. The village I visited was called Bhagatipur, to the west of Kolkata.

The local VFS branch I visited was in Rainhati about 12 miles west of Howrah, the Village of the borrowers I visited was called Bhagatipur, approximately 25 miles further west of Kolkata. The photographs on exhibition are a photo essay of VFS and its clients. Including Jhuma Malik, age 23 and Chhabita Malik, age 25 of the borrowing group “Kali”, their businesses are as a Seemstress’s making Beautiful Sari’s. I also visited with Tapati Bar, Age 22, of the borrowing group “Indrani”, also a Seemstress.

Grameen Foundation – Website

Grameen Foundation helps the world’s poorest, especially women, improve their lives and escape poverty through access to small loans, new ways to generate income, and important information about their health, crops and finances.

Bankers without Borders® is Grameen Foundation’s volunteer program that connects individuals and companies with opportunities to mobilize their skill sets and use their industry expertise to offer Grameen Foundation innovative solutions to help break the cycle of poverty. It is a global reserve corps of business professionals from a variety of fields – from finance and technology to human resources and marketing. These professionals volunteer their time, knowledge, and experience to support microfinance and technology developments in the many areas where we work around the world

Access Development Services – Website

ACCESS is a not-for-profit company that offers specialised technical assistance under two verticals: microfinance and livelihoods. ACCESS assists the growing microfinance sector through streamlined and structured services to emerging MFIs and supports the enabling environment through the Microfinance India platform. Under the Livelihoods Programme Unit, ACCESS impacts the lives of the poor by developing sustainable solutions for upscaling their income generation activities.

We were privileged to have Francis to capture our collaboration and work with MFIs through his wonderful photography. His photographs brought out the essence of our work and his interests in social issues is commendable. We were able to visualise our activities and work, through his photographs. His sense of photography coupled with social interests, set him aside from his peers. We, at ACCESS, wish him luck for all his future endeavours and it was a pleasure having him in our organisation.

Sudipto Saha, Senior Manager Access Assist