#micro financing

I’m so delighted that you’re interested in it!! I do my loaning through Kiva. Basically a lot of banks obviously don’t want to lend to people who are high risk. If they do lend it’s generally high interest. But with Kiva, you have to give a minimum of $25 per loan and generally most people don’t give a huge amount more than that. That means that instead of one bank giving a $1000 loan it’s 40 people give $25. That makes it lower risk for the lender so there isn’t a lot of interest and therefore they’re less likely to default on the loan or become trapped in debt. I like it because it feels more like a business transaction- you’re supporting a business person- rather than the traditional international aid set up where it feels very much like a distant, powerful white person giving money to the poor, sad, foreign person. This feels more like a transaction that would go on here anyway: they’re a business and need money, I have some extra cash. 

The cool thing about it if you are on a budget is that the money is paid back. You might lose a little because of exchange rates but I’ve never lost over a dollar. And so when someone has fully repaid their loan you have $25 in your Kiva Account that you can then lend to someone else. So you can make, say, 5 loans of $25 but spend less than $30. 

What if you could help someone across the world to improve their living situation and the community they live in?

What if you could do that at no cost to you?

You can. It's called micro financing.

Kiva.org is a website that allows anyone to participate in micro financing.

The concept is simple. You and twenty other people loan $25 to someone who needs a loan to start a convenience store in the Philippines. With the capital to buy more goods, this woman can expand her business, her profit, and employ more people. After a short period, usually six months, she will begin to pay you back each month until you get your $25 back. Once you are paid back you can either withdraw the money or lend it again to improve someone else's life.

The repayment rate is 99.01%. [x]

This is an excellent way to make a difference in places that desperately need improvement, it doesn't take much money, and you get all of your money back.

You can make your first loan for free by clicking this link:

http://www.kiva.org/invitedby/katasha1990

Peter Greer of Hope International is trying to change the way that the church responds to global poverty. Using the concept of micro-finance Hope International is providing loans to those living in poverty. They are currently working in 14 countries. Proverbs 19:17

For our first project at Unlimited Partnership, we have decided to focus on a small village in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone, called Telu.

Telu is one of the chiefdoms situated in the southern province of Sierra Leone. The approximate population of Telu is 2500, 55 percent are women, 15 percent are children and 30 percent are men.

For many years the people of the Telu were mostly engaged in swamp and dry land farming, producing cassava, grand-nut, potatoes, pepper, okra, garden eggs, and cucumber.

However, at the end of the Sierra Leone Civil War in 2002 Telu was a very changed place. Prior to the war Telu was classed as the most peaceful chiefdom head quarter with activities like cultural exhibitions and traditional dancing festivals that attracted visitors from surrounding towns and villages. All these became history during the war when on the 30th June 1994 the Revolutionary United Front rebels (RUF) suspecting that Telu had become a training ground for Civil Militias headed by late Corporal Sam Hinga Norman, was brutally attacked. It was dubbed, "The Telu Bongor Massacre", and was put on video and sold widely.

Since that invasion many things have gone wrong. There is still a trauma affecting many women who got raped, humiliated, amputated and became outcasts. Due to their marginalization in the entire re-integration process the situation now is awful. In spite of the selflessness and all desperate efforts to bring back the good time glories, Telu still remains almost a ghost town with progress out of sight. 

Several reports have shown that most Sierra Leoneans live below one dollar a day. Up to now not much has not been done to improve the economic situation. The women who make up the majority of Telu, form a group that is suffering the most, and are the most disadvantaged in the community. All that the women of Telu need is some financial support to upgrade their agricultural productions, and to engage in various viable income generating activities. 

Hello, and welcome to blog three of Unlimited Partnership, we're focussing these first few blogs on getting you up to date with who we are and what we do.

This entry is to explain to you the way we plan on helping the people of Sierra Leone for our first project. It's by using the idea of microfinancing.

Microfinancing sounds mysterious and complicated, but trust us, it's not. It's a fairly simple idea which has had plenty of success stories – which we will detail in the next blog.

Microfinancing means giving financial services to people and organisations who do not have access to the regular financial services we all take for granted, like going down to the bank for a small loan to buy a new car, or an extended credit limit for that upcoming vacation.

Microfinancing is particularly aimed at getting services to third-world nations, like Sierra Leone.

Bangladeshi economist Professor Muhammad Yunus pioneering the idea of microfinancing in the 1970s and subsequently won the Nobel Peace Prize for it in 2006.

In a nutshell, microfinancing is about giving small loans to individuals or groups in impoverished circumstances, so they can start up their own businesses and work their way out of poverty.

Our goal is to implement a micro-credit institution which is financially, organisationally and socially sustainable.

Studies have shown that microfinance has an immediate positive impact on income and employment of poor households and improves their access to education and healthcare, gender equality and ensures the effective utilization and protection of natural resources.

However, it is not a one-size-fits-all theory; to achieve financial sustainability it is necessary to adapt the concept to the local circumstances, but the micro-credits do need to be simple and cost efficient.

Ever heard of Sierra Leone? Chances are you have, but not usually for positive reasons. The term blood diamonds is symbiotic with Sierra Leone, as is civil war.

Sierra Leone is a country in Western Africa bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Guinea and Liberia, it's population is just over 6 million.

Sierra Leone is in a slow recovery from a civil war, which lasted from 1991- 2002, a war that resulted in tens of thousands of deaths and the displacement of more than 2 million people.

The reason we have targeted Sierra Leone is because it needs all the help it can get. It is an extremely poor nation with tremendous inequality in income distribution.

While natural resources are substantial, since the civil war, physical and social infrastructure has yet to recover. According to the CIA World Fact book, serious social disorders continue to hamper economic development.

Nearly half of the working-age population work in subsistence agriculture – farming the land to feed their own families. And manufacturing consists mainly of the processing of raw materials and of light manufacturing for the domestic market.

Hello and welcome to the Unlimited Partnership blog.

First things first, a brief overview of who we are, and what we do.

Unlimited Partnership e.V. is a registered non-profit charity organisation, established and run by international postgraduate students and young professionals. It is dedicated to support developmental aid in third world countries.

Our aim is sustainable aid; we want to achieve a long-term improvement in the economic situation and the living standards in third world regions. To reach this long-term goal, from the get-go aid must be sustainable, there are no quick fixes.

That age old quote “ “Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime” is very relevant around here.

We believe that an educated population is going to have a better chance at economic growth, however, in reality, if the economy is extremely weak, then education is not usually a high priority -immediately putting food on the table is.