Suchergebnisse

Much research has identified the difficulties of promoting women's empowerment using microcredit, but there has been little research on the potential for empowerment from promoting women's savings. We address this gap through a qualitative study of three women's savings programmes in the Highlands of Peru. The results reveal changes in several domains of women's lives (economic, personal and relational), emphasizing that these programmes enable them to think about the future, expand their social support networks, and become entrepreneurs. We conclude that savings interventions have considerable advantage over microcredit programmes for facilitating female empowerment and that the merits of these interventions go far beyond financial inclusion with significant impacts on women's psychosocial well-being and broader empowerment.

The objective of this article is to identify relevant aspects of the bond between intervention agents and participants for the training of social workers and other professionals who are involved in programmes with a psychosocial component. A qualitative study was done, with 21 interviews with participants, intervention agents and a team leader, which were analysed using Grounded Theory. Transversal and technical skills, sources of training, facilitators and hinderers, and recommendations for training were identified. We conclude on the relevance of training in transversal and technical skills for the agent–participant bond for improving both social work practice and social care policies.