#2 :: Self-Help Through Microcredit

	Self-help group making salsa. Photo by Catherine Bailey.

The Golden Jubilee Biotech Park for Women Society, in southern India, gives rural women a path out of poverty while creating environmentally friendly enterprises. Communally organized self-help groups invent ways to transform local, renewable resources into marketable goods, such as the salsa pictured here. Golden Jubilee grants microcredit loans to cover the cost of the space and tools needed to “mass produce” the products. Once the microloan is repaid, the women are independent business owners. Enterprises include hair, skin, and beauty products, prepackaged and instant foods, biofertilizers, and natural pesticides. —Catherine Bailey