Bangalore, India, Jul 22, 2010 / 03:31 am
Sr. Nancy Pereira, foundress of a Fund for the Poor bank to help impoverished clients in Bangalore, India, died on July 14 at the age of 86. Her fellow sisters remembered her for her service to the poor with “joy” and “creative solidarity.”
Sr. Nancy was born at Pudukkruruchy in the state of Kerala on August 14, 1923. She made her first profession as a member of the Daughters of Maria Auxiliatrix (FMA) on January 6, 1945.
She became well-known in the early 1990s when she started the Fund for the Poor, following the example of the Nobel Peace Prize awardee the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. According to CBCI News, clients of Sr. Nancy’s bank had to be poor people from slums or villages who lacked the opportunity to improve their livelihoods.
To obtain credit, a prospective applicant had to prove that he or she had saved a small sum for a year and had taken part in meetings of a small credit management group. The bank’s annual interest rate on its loans only covered management expenses.