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Microfinance programs are helping reduce both urban and rural poverty across Nepal in what amounts to a micro-finance revolution.

One of the key groups at the forefront of this revolution is the Kathmandu-based Centre for Self-Help Development, a nonprofit organization running programmes in at least seven hill districts. Funded by the Asian Development Bank’s Rural Microfinance Project, it now has over 22,000 members—all poor women—in remote villages across the country.

37-year-old Mana Kumari Shrestha is one of the women who regularly borrows from the Centre. She explains that she needs to borrow NRs4,000 (Nepalese rupees) ($63)to pay her children’s school fees when asked by the coordinator why she needs more after borrowing NRs18,000 ($286) previously. After a chorus of “yeas” from the assembled members of the local group, the funds are approved.

The scene is typical of rural microcredit schemes that have sprung up all over the countryside in recent years, with women at the forefront. Observers say they have been pivotal in empowering women and breaking down gender barriers in Nepal’s largely patriarchal rural society.