Women’s World Banking honored Ela Bhatt, one of the original co-founders and chairperson from 1988 to 1998 at the second Annual Celebration held last month at the Metropolitan Pavilion in New York City. The theme for the evening, which drew 300 guests worldwide, was the celebration of women’s leadership.

We are delighted to announce that Banco da Familia, WWB’s network member in Brazil, has been awarded the Mix Market Certificate for Transparency for 2006. Under the leadership of founding President Isabel Baggio and Vice President Marcio Oliveira, Banco da Familia has served primarily poor women entrepreneurs in Brazil since 1999, and currently has over 6000 clients, 62% of whom are women. With the award of the 2006 Certificate of Transparency, Mix Market gives an objective confirmation of the quality of the Banco da Familia’s operations. This will bring Banco da Familia more recognition and visibility in the microfinance sector, and allow the organization to find more diverse sources of funding.

Ela Bhatt—one of the visionary leaders of microfinance and a founding member of Women’s World Banking as well as of SEWA, India—has been chosen as one of “The Elders,” an historic group of world leaders and visionary thinkers convened by Nelson Mandela, Graça Machel and Desmond Tutu. Other founding members include Kofi Annan, Jimmy Carter, Li Zhaoxing, Mary Robinson and Muhammad Yunus.

On July 23, 2007, Manjulaben Vaghela, a waste paper picker by trade, was elected President of the Board of SEWA Bank in Ahmedabad, India. A client of SEWA Bank for 31 years, Manjulaben is the first working-class woman to chair the SEWA Bank board.

Microfinance is a word that gets tossed around at dinner parties, everywhere from New York to Nairobi. It also happens to be the first thing Mary Ellen Iskenderian thinks about when she wakes up each morning.