Most Rev. George Thomas and Constance Proctor, members of the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) board of directors, have been visiting CRS Senegal this past week. They recently visited a microfinance lending institution and the women it helps. Lane Hartill, the CRS regional information officer for West Africa, filed this dispatch:

Bishop George Thomas and Constance Proctor talk with a member of a village bank in Thies, Senegal. Photo by Lane Hartill/CRS

Maybe it was the explosion of color. Or the lizard skin drums. But Constance Proctor, a member of CRS’ board of directors, couldn’t help herself. She just had to dance.

She wasn’t alone. A gaggle of women, their smiling leader with henna-painted hand and a set of pipes Aretha Franklin would have been proud of, moved rhythmically to the music. Covered in sequins with babies bucking on their backs, these women — members of a village banking group in the town of Tivaouane — had something to celebrate: an organization that lent them money so they could lift themselves and their families out of the slow economic vortex that sucks in so many Senegalese.

They were celebrating Caisse Autonome pour le Renforcement des Initiatives Economique par la Micro Finance (CAURIE-MF), a microfinance institution. CAURIE-MF grew out of a microfinance program that CRS has nurtured since 1999. It became autonomous in 2005. It’s no Bank of America or Chase Manhattan. CAURIE-MF isn’t interested in credit ratings or cash flow. All of its 13,500 borrowers are women. Most of them have never had a bank account.

CAURIE-MF benefits poor women, those who sit on buckets in the sand, under a relentless African sun, selling everything from millet porridge and melons to peanuts and whisk brooms. They lend money to women who really need it. An infusion of cash — loans range from $50 to $3000 — is like a shot of pure adrenaline into their businesses. They take off, humming with possibility.

Angel Diédhiou is an elegant lady with perfectly painted eyebrows and a gentle voice. Her loans from CAURIE-MF have allowed her to grow her chicken business from 50 birds to, at its peak, close to 300. That’s not all. She now takes orders for beauty products from local businesses and travels to neighboring Gambia and Mauritania, loads up, and then sells them at a profit. Call it Avon, Senegal style. Business is booming, she says, and it’s only going to get better.

“It really does change their life,” says Mrs. Proctor. “It’s huge for them.”

After visiting with members of a village banking group, Mrs. Proctor takes the microphone and addresses the crowd. Some of the women nurse babies. Others embroider cloth while she speaks.

“Because you are doing so well, it is going to allow other women in Africa to have similar experiences and to have the possibility to do what you are doing,” she says.

Constance Proctor sits among village banking members in Thies, Senegal. Photo by Lane Hartill/CRS

The women cheer. Drums erupt. The women know it’s true.

The essence of CAURIE-MF’s lending theory is ingeniously tied to African culture. Village banking groups select their own members. Most women start out by contributing around $4. Instead of putting up collateral for a loan, group cohesion and trust is leveraged. When your sisters, friends and neighbors are part of your lending group, you repay. You can’t let them down. That has led to a zero default rate on loans.

“The modest amount of money that CRS and Caritas spend is producing an abundant harvest of hope in these villages,” says Bishop Thomas.

Women who received loans proudly display their wares to the board members. Some hold up sticky fish, grinning as they dangle them under their chins. One lady balances a bowling ball sized melon on her palm. She can’t stop smiling.

Neither can Bishop Thomas. Or Mrs. Proctor. Microfinance works. You can, as Bishop Thomas puts it, see the success “written on the women’s faces.”

The book won’t hit the shelves until September, but a website is already up and running. Solidarity Will Transform the World: Stories of Hope from Catholic Relief Services is a collection of testimonies by the people served by CRS. It was written by Jeffry Korgen, the director of social ministries for the National Pastoral Life Center in New York.

The stories in Solidarity Will Transform the World highlight the lives of people in the developing world and the fight against poverty and injustice. Through these accounts, Korgen explores issues like immigration, HIV and AIDS, and peacebuilding.

Solidarity Will Transform the World will take you on a journey to visit the lives of people in Mexico, Zambia, India, Rwanda, and Nicaragua. Read about people in Mexico who are making a better living through Fair Trade coffee and microfinance programs, or about Zambians who through the miracle of antiretroviral drugs have been given a chance at living with HIV and AIDS and who now fight for the lives of their fellow countrymen.

Visit http://storiesofhope.crs.org/, the official website for the book, to read excerpts from all five chapters. The site also contains multimedia about CRS projects around the world — and will soon feature lesson plans and study guides for use of the book in classrooms.

First Lady Laura Bush meets with Mariika Kostova Petrova, a client of USTOI, a microfinance institution that provides small loans to entrepreneurs in low-income communities in Bulgaria, including marginalized ethnic groups such as the Roma. White House photo by Shealah Craighead.

First Lady Laura Bush is in Zambia today and paid a visit to Chreso Ministries Clinic, a Lusaka-based program that provides key services to more than 5,700 people living with HIV and AIDS. We are awaiting a report from Hilary Roxe, our Baltimore-based communications officer for Africa, who is currently in Zambia.

But in the meantime, this gives us a chance to catch up on a visit earlier this month by the First Lady to a CRS-funded microfinance project in Bulgaria. Mrs. Bush met with four women who are long-term clients of USTOI (a Bulgarian word meaning “basis” or “foundation”), a microfinance institution that provides small loans to entrepreneurs in low-income communities in Bulgaria, including marginalized ethnic groups such as the Roma.

The four women Mrs. Bush met on June 11 participate in a microfinance project called “Inclusive Business Development of Roma Communities in Bulgaria,” a joint venture of USTOI, CRS and USAID. The four USTOI clients exhibited goods at the library that they trade at the women’s market in Sofia. Mrs. Bush had the opportunity to hear an overview of the program and then met with each of the women to hear their stories.

One of the women is Mariika Kostova Petrova, who sells sportswear, shoes and rugs out of two stalls in the city’s open-air market. Mariika is a widow with three children: two sons and a daughter. One of her sons helps her in the business, while her daughter is currently in Greece for seasonal work.

Mariika says she appreciates the access to credit that USTOI provides,  which enables her to regularly change her stock according to the season. She is currently repaying her seventh loan. She has her eye on the neighboring stall, which she’d like to rent to expand her business.