Microcredit Programme - Nigeria

In addition to the mandatory courses that precede loan disbursement, this programme involves making films in local languages with village theatre groups on topics like communal hygiene, rainwater harvesting, ceramic stoves, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) such as HIV/AIDS. These films will be shown on a TV screen that is powered by car batteries and placed on top of the programme's Mobile Community Telecentre (MCT) van on market days. (Based in Kunyai, Nigeria, this van carries up to four computers and travels to rural communities). The film showings will be followed by meetings with specific groups to discuss in more detail issues arising from the films.

Women in participating communities are trained to use video cameras for the production of these films. They may qualify for microcredit loans if they wish to purchase the cameras to use for commercial purposes such as video coverage for birth, marriage, and funeral ceremonies. These camera women will also be involved in the production of video documentaries of the indigenous knowledge and skills of their communities.

Health, HIV/AIDS, Women, Technology, Economic Development.

Established in 1996, Fantsuam Foundation is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) located in Nigeria, about 600 miles from Lagos in the north-central part of the country. Fantsuam works to alleviate poverty through participatory decision making that utilises local beliefs as a primary mechanism for setting project priorities. Thus, its primary project partners are women's clan groups, which are non-religious and non-political. These groups are located in Kaduna, Benue, Gombe and Plateau States; between them they have membership of about 3,000. Each participating community and women's group provides volunteers who undertake various activities and training relevant to their project. These volunteers work with Fantsuam's three-member Board of Trustees, made up of Nigerian professionals who determine policy matters. A five-member National Management Committee implements activities.

Fantsuam Foundation also works:

• to provide collateral-free microcredits for women
• to promote rural health and education
• to document local languages in an effort to improve women's access to literacy and education, indigenous knowledge, and traditional medicine, as well as to protect the intellectual property rights of rural communities, and
• to collaborate with government agencies, Nigerian university departments, and Nigerian professionals in the Diaspora.