1 youth
2 microentrepreneurs in developing world - what love about real cases is the opportunity to spot whose doing a great job in community that could be a great job in many more communities - tell us chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk where to browse catalogues of microentrepeneurs -these from wholefoods 1 2make one wonder what is stopping other global companies from using some of their promotional budgets to celbrate the wonderful jobs that being connected to the first net generation can linkin all over the world
1 youth
2 microentrepreneurs in developing world - what love about real cases is the opportunity to spot whose doing a great job in community that could be a great job in many more communities - tell us chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk where to browse catalogues of microentrepeneurs -these from wholefoods 1 2 make one wonder what is stopping other global companies from using some of their promotional budgets to celbrate the wonderful jobs that being connected to the first net generation can linkin all over the world
Sareta is a microcredit is small loans - usually less than $300 in the developi...
">microcredit client of South Pacific Business Development, Whole Planet Foundation's partner in Samoa. Her first loan of $327 USD was 4 years ago. Her current loan is $1,091 USD and she used it to purchase handicrafts and jewelry made in surrounding villages to sell them at the local market. Roughly once a month she and the other vendors hear of the arrival of a cruise ship to the nearby port. This increased traffic greatly increases her income as she is able to sell her merchandise to visiting tourists.Before Sareta had the opportunity to secure a microloan from SPBD she had very little income, estimated at about $22 USD a week. At that time she could only offer one tray of merchnadise for sale. Now she has three tables and she generates a profit of about $175 USD per week. Sareta is very proud of her business and has plans one day to open her own shop.
Lourdes is a young tradeswoman who runs her own business, a small general store.
Lourdes is the reflection of many of the women in Paraguay who wiped extreme poverty off
Lourdes is a young tradeswoman who runs her own business, a small general store. She is 25 years old and lives in Mariano Roque Alonso, a district known for the largest agriculture and industry fair in Paraguay.
Lourdes is the reflection of many of the women in Paraguay who wiped extreme poverty off, and found in the “Committees of Women Entrepreneurs” (Fundacion Paraguaya’s village banking program) the best way to improve their income and life style.
“When I first started, my store had a plain scale with different metal weights, a couple of shelves, very few merchandise and an old fridge. Now I have a digital scale, a 400 litter freezer, two big fridges and a bigger quantity of merchandise”, the young entrepreneur says with profound satisfaction. The Fundacion Paraguaya, a local Paraguayan NGO, has more than 2,000 Committees of Women Entrepreneurs (village banking groups) across the country, comprising nearly 30,000 women whose average loans are of $80.
Lourdes, as the other members of the committee, gets microloans for investing in her small business, and training sessions in financial management, leadership, self-management and other skills.
“My first loan was of US$40, which I invested in merchandise for my store. I was so excited! It was the first time in my life I got access to credit. Before that, I always wanted to ask for a loan from a financial institution to fulfill my dream of owning a store”, Lourdes remembers.
Ramirez has all her goals clear in her head, she dreams with something new and saves up to get it. “Now that I got my dream of having my own little business, I dream with new things. My dream now is to have a bigger store with more merchandise and a small restaurant, where I could sell fast food and drinks. I’m thinking about dismantling this unstable wood construction, buy some new tables, get cable TV and make hamburgers and other kinds of fast food that you can’t get in my neighborhood.” “When I close my eyes I see my own house made of hard material, my cooler and a TV upstairs in a pedestal support. I also see my restaurant filled with people sitting around the table and I see myself serving them. Since I was young I always dreamed of having my own restaurant. I’m surrounded by people who support me to fulfill this dream.”
For Lourdes, the key is to save money to fulfill her dreams and to help people who might need it. Besides, she has developed her own savings method through the years so that she can reach her goals. “I always save with a goal in mind. I’ve been saving the earnings from my sales for 6 months now, in a US$3 dollar-a-day piggy bank, for my son’s birthday. And I keep a daily record in my store so I know how much money I need to have in the register at the end of every day”, she explains. “I also plan on buying a freezer to cool drinks as a goal. And I’m going to make it, just as I could buy and pay for my other freezer simply with my daily ice selling profit. While today Lourdes enjoys her best income level so far and a significantly improved life style, it wasn’t always like this.
Her father died when she was only 12 years old. Soon after that she decided, as many young women in the rural areas, to head out for the capital city to work as a housemaid.
She got pregnant at age 19 and with that she took on a whole new set of responsibilities. “I realized I was pregnant when I was in my fourth month. I almost died. I got so depressed because I was going to be a single mom.”
However, as she explains, her situation began to change when she found the Committee of Entrepreneurial Women. This gave her a support system and access to credit to invest in her own business, the small general store, which after three years keeps on growing and giving her hope for a better future.
Thusitha is a brilliant, talented woman from Sri Lanka. She’s a tailor, designer, painter, etc. It is amazing how skilled she is. She is popular in her community for making wedding dresses. BRAC Sri Lanka currently serves 100% women clients and Whole Planet Foundation will provide them with a $500,000 grant over the next 3 years, with a goal of reaching 2,644 new Microentrepreneur">borrowers.
Microcredit client Kalpana, a seasonal vegetable farmer from Bhirgaun, Dhankuta in Nepal, sells her vegetables in the local market. Whole Planet Foundation partners with Nirdhan Utthan Bank and Mercy Corps in Nepal where Whole Foods Market sources tea. Our goal in supporting this community with a $312,000 grant is to reach 10,000 farmers like Kalpana who do not have access to traditional financial systems.
Read more about this entrepreneur
YIM is a microcredit client of Chamroeun in the Phnom Penh region of Cambodia. She invested her loan and now sells vegetables in the local market.
Chamroeun has 18,544 active clients and a repayment rate of 99%. Whole Planet Foundation hopes to reach 6,042 new clients over the next 3 years with a $500,000 interest free loan.
Wilman is a young microcredit client in Ecuador who is building his business and improving his life with the help of microloans. He even helps build his community by making and selling the bricks that are used to construct many local houses.
Whole Planet Foundation partners with FODEMI in the Otavalo and Latacunga regions of Ecuador where Whole Foods Market sources Whole Trade Guarantee Flowers. With a $300,000 interest free loan, the foundtaion hopes to reach 1,000 new clients over 2 years. Photo courtesy of Megan Bond Hinrichsen.
She says microcredit works because of 2 rocks, the credit officer (on the left) and the center chief (her).
Her loan enabled her to restore her grocery business (on left) which was wiped out by the hurricane of 2008.
To expand on her success she teaches friends the grocery business so that they can mind the store for her.
Yvesrose is proud of her successful grocery business which has helped her to start another business selling sell goat meat.
Cooking plantains for her specialty- Red Red
Her business has expanded through access to capital to invest in food to cook.
Her Red Red business uses a lot of cooked plantains
Red Red is blackeyed peas and tomatoes served with plantains
Including Red Red
"My name is Regina. I am a member of the “Wuni Songmi ti” credit group located in Zogbeli, a suburb of Tamale in Northern Ghana. I started the “red red” business 10 years ago with an initial amount of GHC 50.00 which I obtained from my husband. I could only buy 3 bunches of plantain and make an average sale of GHC 10 ($6.60) a day. The profit in the business was so small (GHC 2 or $1.32) that it couldn’t sustain my family. I could only use the money to buy food for my children.
There were so many challenges to the growth of my business. I couldn’t buy plenty plantain from the market women because my capital was very small. Also, since the plantain came only occasionally, I always finished selling the few that I could buy and kept waiting until the market women returned from the South with fresh plantain. This affected the growth of my business and the profit I made. This situation continued until I met Grameen Ghana last year.
I took an initial loan of $100. After paying on time, I requested for $300 in the second cycle. With the loan and business education provided by Grameen Ghana, my daily sales have increased and the profit from my “red red” business has also increased.
With increased capital, I have added a new product called plantain chips. This is also made from plantain but unlike “red red” the chips are fried dry and can be stored for long periods. I supply these chips to shops and offices all over the Tamale metropolis.
The support received from Grameen Ghana under WPF support has transformed my live in various aspects. I am now highly respected by my husband because I contribute to the family budget. I am now able to pay the school fees and hospital bills of my children as well as buy clothing for myself and my children. I no longer rent equipment for my business as I have been able to buy all the necessary equipment
While thanking you so much for your support, I want to encourage you to continue to expand your support to help change the lives of many other poor women in my area. I also want to say that the change you have brought into my life will be even greater when you increase my loan size to enable me increase my business to meet the growing customer needs."
Business: Animal fattening
Abebecha uses her loan funds to purchase young cows (one at a time) which she raises to maturity and sells at a profit. This activity is somewhat unique to this area of Ethiopia and differs from typical livestock raising in that the cow actually lives in the house with the family while it grows rather than having a separate pen or roaming in a field. Abebecha is in a Group Lending">solidarity group called Derartu which means flower in the local language.
Itah lives with her spouse and son in the neighborhood in Banda Ache on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. Just around the corner live her mother Saudah, and her aunt Siti Atah as well as her other three brothers and sisters and their families. The three women have come together to expand the family business; selling “Karah” a traditional cookie of the Ache province - a very popular dessert food among youth and children.
Itah was the first in her immediate family to attend University and upon graduating with a degree in Administration began working as a secretary at a popular newspaper agency. Itah’s mother Saudah, like her mother, had no formal education. What she did have was a simple family recipe for “Karah”, a fried cookie of sort, with its main ingredients including rice, sugar, oil and spices. After getting married and having their first child, Itah begin pondering how she could start something on her own in order to gain greater flexibility in her demanding daily schedule. Itah needed more time to maintain her newly established family; she wanted to set her own agenda and start her own business. Itah decided to quit her job as a secretary and join her mother and her aunt with the “Karah” business. According to Itah, this was not looked upon as a step back, but as a step forward as Itaha’s plan was to develop and expand the family business.
In 2009, after hearing about microcredit and the opportunity to access financial services in her village, she convinced her mother and aunt to join her in applying for a loan. All three women joined microfinance groups within their neighborhood and received first time loans of IDR 2,000,000 (USD ~$230) . The capital went directly to purchasing ingredients in bulk at a lower cost and packaging materials in order to extend the outreach of their product. Without any problem, Itah was able to pay back her first loan. Itah, as well as her mother and her aunt have now taken out their third loan of IDR 3,000,000(USD ~$350). Utilizing Itah’s administration education and her natural entrepreneur spirit, with the extra capital investment in the business, earning and profit continue to increase dramatically.
Before the access to capital, maximum output was around 100 cookies (sold at IDR 1,000) per day. Within three years they have nearly doubled that to 200 cookies sold per day. Not only is Itah making more money than she was as a secretary but now she has more time to spend with her family. Apart from this, Itah also gained social recognition in her neighborhood. She was selected as the center president of Center #41, and according to her “is responsible for protecting the program and supporting her fellow entrepreneurs when needed to ensure the continued success of her Center”. Itah has a strong zeal to expand the business further. Her next plan is to design a personal trademark for the family recipe and begin to distribute the product wholesale in order to cut out the middle man; lowing costs and increasing profit.
Read more about this entrepreneur
Roselene is a microcredit client of WPF partner Fonkoze in Haiti where Whole Foods Market sources mangoes. Roselene is 57 years old with 9 children ranging from 12 to 35, and a total of 10 grandchildren. Roselene was a victim of the hurricanes and storms that ravaged Haiti in 2008, and with the help of Fonkoze, was able to restart her business and rebuild her life. In the 2010 earthquake, Roselene again lost everything. “I had some things at my home, and I have my Fonkoze bank account. I am starting again with the little merchandize I have left.” She lives in the tent city, where she has restarted her business again with the assistance of Fonkoze. “My Fonkoze credit agent came to see me a couple of days after the quake, I knew he had lost his home as well, but he was there reassuring me that we will make it.” That, she said is also a big reason she will not give up. Roselene will put her business and life back in place. She finds strength because she knows she is a “member of a group of women who have been given second chances, but with Fonkoze, we keep getting these chances whenever we think all is lost.”
Astou is a married woman and mother with 5 children (3 boys and 2 daughters), she manages a restaurant in her neighborhood situated in the heart of Ndoffane. She typically prepares Ndambé (a meal of beans and tomato sauce) for lunch, and ragout (a vegetable and meat stew) or touffé (chicken cooked in a sauce of onions for dinner)- and sometimes Thieboudienne (Senegalese national dish of fish filled with local spices and slow cooked in vegetables and a tomato sauce) for lunch as well (rice is the staple starch/accompaniment in Senegal). She also offers hot drinks like coffee and tea. Her clientele is made up of neighbors and travelers passing through Ndoffane, and also largely those who come to the weekly market (known as the “Louma”) in Ndoffane.
Astou started with CAURIE microfinance the 29th December 2010 with a first loan of 50,000 CFA (about $100) with a duration of 6 months and is currently managing a second loan of the same size.
You can find the recipe for Senegalese Rice and Fish
here.
Ayse (pronounced Aisha) took her $500 loan with TGMP and opened a small food stall serving hot lunches of standard Turkish meals to workers in Denizli town.
Like her fellow group members borrowing from TGMP, Ayse has worked hard with her loan and set-up a small business that she manages with a friend and the occasional help of her two young daughters. Preparing traditional soups and stews that I learned are staples in this community, Ayse has managed to create an income that also lets her as a single mother watch her children when they are home from school.
Being able to run home-based businesses or businesses near the home was one of the most common benefits clients mentioned when talking about the new micro-credit services offered by TGMP. In an industrial town like Denizli often the only other option is factory work which requires paying for child care and transport to work.
Find recipes for Turkish Lentil soup and Turkish Kofta soup.
View Archived Microentrepreneurs (20)
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===================please note most of this column is due to be re-edited we hope to issue a list of yunus top 10 stories but when it comes to solutions matching those challeges there's all to play for as web3 is humanity's last chnace to leap ahead
hottest youth-spring question of our life and times-can online education end youth unemployment for ever ? yes but only if you help map how!
Breaking News to action now!
About Pro-Youth economics at Norman Macrae Foundation online library of norman macrae - The Economist's Unacknowledged Giant -videos 1 2 -fansweb NMFoundation- youth projects - include yunuschoolusa
fullest press reports Grameen Brand Partnership Architecture
exponential impact advisory: the social business youth networks inspired by muhammad yunus -without which millennium goal actions networks would be way behind are worth far more than any individual parts according to Norman Macrae Foundation trilliondollaraudit methodology and charter notespace
Beyond the extraordinary investment of the members bank at Grameen, and the approximate third share its members foundation holds in grameenphone, here is our Unofficial League Table of Most Impactful Social Business Investments around yunus - last update 1 dec 2012
! Grameen Solar
2 Grameen Mobile Nursing nets and college
3 Portfolio of investments linkedin by Japan
4 Portfolio of youth-led networking inventions in US educationsystem tertiar and secondary - transparency note NM Foundation has minor donation/loan interest
5 Investments in Grameen as collaboration brand linked in out of paris- the origin of global social business partnership funds
6 OpenTech investments of Grameen Intel
-------- while not controlled by yunus we see wholeplanetfoundation microcredit investment table and conscious capitalsm movements and hugely important to advancing pro-youth economicsmission of friends of youth and yunus
email chris.macrae@yahoo.co.ukif you have questions or recommendations of entries that should be in this league table
-please read notes about what pro-youth economists mean by superapps being most
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