Saris on Scooters: How Microcredit Is Changing Village India [Paperback]

"These women are living examples of sustainable solutions to poverty. For decades the world has donated billons to fund megaprojects, while also inadvertently supporting corruption and oppressive regimes. This book will make us question how we help people in other societies."

(Hudson-St. Lazare Gazette )

"Inspiring as such stories are, they are abundant in any number of publications and on the internet. What fleshes them out into a lively full-length book are other factors, including striking accounts of Hindu and Muslim women working to avoid con­flict in the face of an active attempt to stoke it by polarized communal groups, politicians and the police, and of a stay in a model organic farm in the foothills of the Himalayas to take a two-week course on “Gandhi, Cultures of Non-violence and Globalization.”

(Literary Review of Canada, The )

"It’s a well written, inspiring read, perfect for any sustainable traveler interested in the compelling stories of other people’s lives."

(Gap Adventures )

"Thankfully, Saris on Scooters is about microcredit sans the big time. Call it the theory of general relativity. The level of analysis should fit the story, plain and simple. An investigation of microcredit needs to be made on a micro-level."
(The Record )

Renowned author and journalist Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos uses her talent for investigative reporting to take us deep into the poorest villages in India. Yet, far from being passive victims of their circumstances, the women who live there have joined forces and are making astute use of microcredit to break the cycle of poverty.

Microcredit was made famous by Bangladeshi economist Muhammad Yunus and consists of very small loans made primarily to women for the production of essential commodities or to start small businesses. Basing the book on a number of trips to India between 2001 and 2008, Arnopoulos shows her sense of solidarity and desire for authenticity by sharing the daily life of these villagers. The first-person account of her extensive travels focuses primarily on these women's inspiring success stories. After witnessing many such situations first-hand, she believes that these villages have a potential strength equal to that of the modern, high-tech cities in India.

(201107)

Sheila McLeod Arnopoulos is the author of a novel and two other non-fiction books, has won the Governor General's Literary Award, and has earned several journalism prizes for exposes about marginalized women and minorities. A former journalism professor, she spent a total of twenty-one months in India meeting grassroots women using microcredit to launch businesses and achieve social change.