Catalog

Partnership Changing Women’s Lives
ADB Review [ January - February 2004 ]

To help reach more disadvantaged women, Khushhali Bank (KB) partnered with nongovernment organizations, such as the Family Planning Association of Pakistan (FPAP), that share their belief that gender equity and empowerment are prerequisites to sustainable development. FPAP acts as a social mobilizer, while KB serves as the financier. FPAP believes that empowerment is a strengthening and nurturing of the power intrinsic within women, and not power over others. FPAP believes that economic empowerment is related to a woman’s role as a decision maker.

After getting a PRs6,000 loan ($105) from KB through FPAP, 42-year-old Fehmida not only contributes to the family income through a snack bar she set up using a loan from KB, but also participates in the decisionmaking process now.

“My husband and in-laws now respect me and I take part in major household decisions,” she says, recently having made a decision concerning her eldest daughter’s marriage.

She and her mother-in-law cook, while her husband looks after the shop. With their earnings, they are able to send their children to school. Life is much smoother, she says. But the best part, she adds, is that her husband does not beat her up anymore.

Begun in a pilot area near Lahore with only a handful of borrowers, the partnership between KB and FPAP has serviced about 8,000 borrowers in various parts of the country, mostly rural women. But for FPAP, this is just the beginning of a quest to improve the lives of poverty-stricken, marginalized women and eventually make them empowered members of society.

Email this to a friend