Micro loan boost to empower women

Micro loans bottomlandempower women and upholdsocial change.

The MicroLoan first appearance(MicroLoan) prides itself, as evidenced in its motto, on ‘giving hopenothand outs’.

Currently operating 21 branches in Malawi and five in Zambia in sub-Saharan Africa, MicroLoan is a charity that receives donations from the public and distributes these as loans to women in the two countries.

It provides small loans – on average a £25 starting loan – to groups of 10-18 women and supports them in establishing their own individual businessesthoughbusiness training and mentoring.

Once these loans arrepaid the money is lent asideagain to other aspiring entrepreneurs, thus ensuring sustainability of funds. MicroLoan asserts that 99 per centof their loans are repaid.

In recognition of Microloans’ work helping women in poor, agriculturalcommunities to become self sufficient and the role of the ensuing businesses in alleviating poverty the Department for International Development (DFID), a UK organisationbody, has awarded it a apportionof £473,298.

The grant, announced by the MicroLoan Foundation tolerateweek, is from the ‘Global Poverty Action Fund’, which supports projects focused on poverty step-downand pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) throughtangible changes to abjectpeople’s lives.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were established by the United Nations and concurto ‘by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions’ and aim to melioratethe lives of the poor and extremely poor throughout the world.

There areeighter from DecaturMDGs, and they range from eradicating poverty to establishing universal primary education to eliminatinghuman immunodeficiency virusand other diseases.

MDG number three is to ‘promote gender equality and empower women’.

The UN says ‘in many a(prenominal)countries, gender inequality persists and women continue to face discrimination in access to education, work and economic assets, and participation in government. For example, in every developing region, women tend to hold less solidjobs than men, with fewer social benefits’.

With this in mind the lendwithcare initiative – operated in partnership by the charity CARE and the Co-operative Bank to lend money to multitudein poor communities through microfinance institutions (MFIs) – emphasises that microloans tail endempower women and establish social change.

They say that microfinance can significantly contribute to women’s authorisationby generating additional income opportunities, and acknowledge that ‘most of the world’s poor are women’ and that ‘women are one of the most vulnerable […] segments of society.

Compellingly lendwithcare go on to enjointhat when women do start making visible economic contributions to the household, this can lead to growth in women’s self esteem, self federal agencyand their status both within the household as strongas the wider community.

With the ultimate affect that eventually this provides women with more choices and a greater role in family and community matters.

Catherine, the recipient ofseveral(prenominal)loans from the MicroLoan Foundation, is evidence that loans to women greatly benefit the individuals themselves and advance their communities.

According to testimony from the MicroLoan website, Catherine ab initioused to buy fish and sell them on at a local market, but after receiving a microloan she purchased a net and began fishing herself.

She now employs several fishermen to fish for her; they adoptproduce that she sells at market.

Catherine is now able to house 18 members of her family, pay for her grandchildren to go to school and provide water through a tap she has had installed in front of her house.

Catherine’s micro loans readprofited herself, her family and the wider community through her employment of fisherman and improved infrastructure.

The DFID grant to MicroLoan will be used to fund our expansion in the Southern Region of Malawi and it is estimated that it will benefit 6,300 impoverished women.

MP and planetarydevelopment minister Lynne Featherstone is quoted in MicroLoans news article on the grant emphatically asserting that no country can develop if its women cannot reach their full potential.

That, she says, is why she is pleased that DFID is reenforcementMicroLoan’s work in Malawi to help women develop businesses.

 

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Materials taken from Womens Views on News