Micro-loans to start and grow businesses in La Limonada, fighting poverty in this vulnerable area of Guatemala Contribution by Samuel Brizuela, director of The Community Empowerment International Fund (FAC) La Limonada used to be nothing more than a ravine running through Guatemala City, Guatemala. During a decade-long civil war which began in the 1950’s, many […]
Solidarity based finance working for recovered enterprises and cooperatives. In 2002, Argentina was beset by a devastating economic crisis, the worst in its recent history. The peso-dollar parity was abandoned, the banking sector collapsed and the economy went into severe recession. In practically all the production sectors, enterprises -the majority of them factories- filed for […]
The co-operative El Zapallo Verde is a responsible consumption network in Quito. Four years ago, a small group of consumers began to seek a way to buy hand-made and agricultural products, directly from the organic producers of the surrounding area. Today there are 300 members who, through a website and once per week, buy from the four farmers and eight organic […]
The Palmas Bank was founded in 1998 in the Conjunto Palmeiras (50.000 inhabitants), a Fortaleza slum, in the Brazilian nordeste. It is the combination of a complementary currency (today accepted by the 97% of shops and supermarkets in the Conjunto) and a social bank (whose activity is focussed on productive microcredit). They were the pioneers in the […]
Coming soon… Related articles: The Working World, in Buenos Aires, Argentina.