The Details 

We officially launched our microcredit program, as a pilot, in May of 2009.  We gave out 22 loans to 20 working mothers and 2 men.  Each recipient was living in extreme poverty and planned to use the loan to invest in their business.  It was very exciting talking to the women and hearing how they planned to invest the money.  We are now feverishly working to significantly expand what we started a little over a year ago.  We are adding more and more women every month to the program, and expect to have over 200 women with loans outstanding by January of 2011.  By the end of 2011 we plan to have over 1000 women in our microcredit program, and to be operating in multiple countries.  As we expand in Uganda we are already working on a similar program in Rwanda.  This is an incredible way to make a huge difference in the lives of these women and the children in their care.  Not only does it help them to break free of poverty it also empowers them as they work to create a new life for themselves and their families.

Among our resent recipients is a tailor who will use the money to buy material to make and sell new clothing, and a recipient who now has the funds to buy a goat and sell the milk for profit.  Another is a woman who buys and sells used clothing, she will now be able to expand her business to new clothes with a higher margin.  It is incredibly exciting to work with these mothers and hear their ideas.  Ideas they have been planning for a lifetime are now, finally, being realized.   Many of these women have sent their children to live in various orphanages simply because they cannot afford to feed them.   They now have a hope that the life they had never thought possible, just might be achievable. 

For more information on how microcredit is impacting the lives of these women please see our success stories section.

Funding 

We are currenlty funding the program in two primary ways.  Our most important source of funds is through our donors.  This is an incredible way to make a lasting difference in an often neglected part of the world.  For more infomation please see our donate page.

Another funding program we have just launched is called "Invest for Change".  This program actually allows investors to invest in microcredit and earn a return on the money they have invested with us.  For more information on this program please see our Invest for Change page.