Madura Microfinance ventures into films

Microfinance Focus, Dec. 22, 2009: Madura Micro Finance Ltd. (MMFL) announced on Tuesday a feature film project with title ‘Shakti Pirakkudhu’ in Tamil. The film is created in association with filmmaker Usha Rajeswari of Prakriti Jiva Media.
While the film is fictional, many of the situations and scenes have been based on the true-life stories of many of the self-help group women of Madurai, as well as case studies of small businesses created by the non-profit Marketplace Literacy Project promoted by Prof. Madhu Viswananthan of the University of Illinois.

Shakti Pirakkudhu is an attempt to create a role model and spark greater aspirations among SHG members. As a follow up effort, MMFL has developed various initiatives that include a business education program for the semi-literate, created in association with Prof. Madhu Viswanathan, USA.

Speaking to Media persons, Dr. Tara Thiagarajan, chairperson, said, “Sundari is a village woman with an opportunity to take a small loan. However, she has not really worked before and her only skill is tailoring, just like many other women in her small and ill-connected village. Her husband wants her to give him the money. The only problem is that he has not been successful in business either, starting and abandoning numerous small ventures. Can she make the leap herself? What will she do? This is a story of a woman struggling to define what success means to her in terms of family, community and the greater world outside her village. It is a story of the ultimate triumph of the human spirit.”

‘Shakti Pirakkudhu’ touches on various principles of business demonstrating things that can go wrong. It, however, places these in the context of the complex web of human relationships and the emotions and attitudes. “While we will show this film to our 4,00,000 SHG members, we also anticipate a wider, general audience,” she added.

Madura Micro Finance Ltd. is a non banking finance company started in 2006 with a very clear objective of bringing about positive social change in rural India by facilitating productive use of microfinance loans. Currently, along with its sister organization Microcredit Foundation of India, it has 4,50,000 members organized into about 25,000 self help groups across 29 districts of Tamil Nadu. Madura has disbursed INR 4,400 million in self help group loans to date. Recognized by Forbes magazine as the most operationally efficient microfinance organization worldwide it is able to lend profitably at the lowest rates of interests on the market today.

It has attracted private equity capital from Elevar Equity (previously Unitus Equity Fund).

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