Awakening: Empowering Women Through Microloans

Joel Weber and Dominic Howes' Awakening: Empowering Women Through Microloans is a technically modest but informative documentary on providing small loans to the impoverished in underdeveloped countries, with the aim of not only improving immediate circumstances but also instilling long-term habits of investment and self-improvement. The emphasis of the film, which is divided equally between cooperatives in India organized by Sister Mary Lobo and a mini-bank in Afghanistan that distributes modest sums for homegrown businesses such as weaving or the raising of livestock, is on bringing women into the economic system. Awakening strikes a good balance between straightforward explanation of how microloans work (by Sister Mary and others, who see it as a promising means of addressing poverty) and testimony from loan recipients about how their lives have been changed for the better. DVD extras include a bonus featurette about programs in Colombia and on the Pine Bluff Indian Reservation in South Dakota (here the focus is on men—a South American shop owner and a Native American with a herd of buffalo), an interview with Sister Mary, and a photo gallery. Recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (F. Swietek)