vijayawada at first glance gobhanu sasankar korisepati appears to be just another school kid but unlike most kids of his age this 16yearold telugu student living in muscat runs an initiative that provides interestfree loans to women from poor backgrounds in developing countries the initiative has so far helped change lives of over 1000 poor women in 77 countriestaking a cue from the grameen bank established by nobel laureate mohammad yunus in bangladesh young sasankar raised about 10000 omani riyal rs 198 lakh through his classmates and their parents to finance the poor women living by running petty businessesall his loans are interestfree with a recovery rate of 9875 most of the women beneficiaries are farmers weavers petty traders and artisans sasankar has tied up with kiva a nonprofit organisation based in san francisco that does the background check and recommends beneficiaries once the beneficiary is identified sasankar extends assistance through kivathe microfinance platform sustaining women in financial turmoil swift was set up in september 2020 since then sasankar has assisted women in india albania the philippines ecuador and kyrgyzstan among other countrieshe told toi that rather than donating money he believed in extending interestfree loans to recycle the money and create an impact across the world sasankar who hails from nellore in andhra pradesh said he first came to know about interestfree microfinancing during his internship with the grameen bank in bangladesh he then chose to start something similar in omani asked for donations from 19 of my friends pursuing 8th to 10th grade from aba oman international school and founded swift instead of spending the fund in charity i decided to extend interestfree loans to women and perpetuate the benefit of onetime donation he saidsince we have rolled out the loans our repayment rate has been very high plus they can withdraw their funds at any time sasankar added the repayment rate doesnt come as a surprise as kiva itself which had given loans to the tune of 161 billion us dollars also holds a repayment rate of 963 amongst four million borrowershe credits his work to his parents and his teacher aneesh kumar chellappannair who guided the young lot when asked why he specifically focused on women in financial turmoil he explained i was shocked when i found that the unemployment rate amongst women in oman alone is 12 which is more than the world average of 8 i believe microfinancing can play a significant role in this direction