The Venus Programme

This section of the Mantra Project consists of training, saving and microcredit projects specially designed for women’s economic empowerment, the key factor for change in most developing countries.

The programme objective is to promote formalised and sustainable microfinance networks in emerging countries by giving rural and craftswomen better access to financial services and control over their own resources. The programme carries out its mission through four core activities: i) mobilizing women to create and run their own small businesses; ii) running microfinance courses and workshops, addressed to local women, to build the necessary capacity to interact with, and in certain cases lead, their own independent community-owned financial institutions; iii) building self-reliance at the grass-roots level; and iv) establishing effective partnerships with local governments, MFIs and NGOs.

By providing women with adequate training, easy access to credit, and engendering in them the importance of saving, Mantra enables women to engage in income-generating activities to increase their wealth and invest in their micro-businesses, purchase medicines, pay for health  care and education, make home improvements and build a better future for themselves and for their children. Furthermore, through participating in the project, women develop self-confidence and assertiveness, secure a sense of self-worth, gain status in their families and communities, obtain the power to control their own lives within and outside the home as well as increasing their ability to influence the direction of social change towards a more just social and economic order.