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FTT: “To save is to invest in hope…”

Here’s a brief insight into our journey through Ecuador, the last destination on our great American adventure. Although the women in Ecuador wear panama hats rather than the bowler hats favoured by the women in Peru, and use American dollars rather than the Peruvian sol, we felt that there were a number of similarities between [...]

Collective credit in Peru

For the past 10 years, she has worked with Promujer (a Microfinance Institution – MFI) because “access to credit is easier than with banks”, she explained. “We formed groups of 20 to 25 people, because it’s easier to get loans as a group. This way, we didn’t need to provide guarantees, which we would have had to do for the banks”. [...]

FTT: Bolivia, Land of Extremes

The land of superlatives. This is how our travel guide refers to it, and rightly so. The poorest country in South America is also home to the highest, coldest, hottest, windiest, driest and wettest regions on the planet. And that’s not all – far from it. We feel as though we regularly have to resort [...]

Panorama of microfinance in Argentina

Argentina is not a country in which microfinance flourishes, particularly in comparison with its neighbours, Bolivia and Peru. [...]

FTT: Discovery of a new continent

And here we are now in South America! What a radical change! We’re going to spend about four months here, our route taking us through Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru and the Republic of Ecuador.  We’ll be doing all this by bike, with one exception: Paraguay, which we will cross by bus, as the [...]

FTT : Philippines, last asian adventure

The Philippines: the last major stage in our Asian adventure. This archipelago of 7,000 islands is an ideal destination for saying a gentle goodbye to the continent, for while the country is geographically in Asia, it’s culturally quite separate. An explosive mix of Asian, European and American cultures give it a unique flavour. Filipinos are [...]

FTT: Cambodia, a MFI for the city-dwellers

Finally, the following day we met with a Frenchman, Gregoire Héaulme, an active member of the “Entrepreneurs of the World” network and the person who created the MFI Cahmroeun before handing over its management to a Cambodian.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia: Grégoire Héaulme of the MFI “Chamroeun”
Chamroeun is unique in Cambodia in operating exclusively in urban areas.
According [...]

FTT: microfinance in Nepal

Our visit to Nepal has left us with wonderful memories, but above all, it has helped us to understand just how important microfinance can be for the Nepalese.
The territory of Nepal is divided into three distinct zones: the Himalayas to the north, hills in the centre and the Teraï plains to the south. Microfinance has [...]