1. Developing sustainable businesses
2. Improving education
We believe that these two factors are pivotal in affecting all aspects of the communities’ prosperity and have the potential to most dramatically increase the standard of living.
The induction of our microfinance program was in large part due to the effective work we saw being done by Muhammad Yunus across the globe. Microfinance has been such an important part of getting marginalized regions access to capital so that they can pursue small business ventures that help bring their family necessary income. The fact of the matter is, most banks will not lend any amount of money to individuals considered “high-risk” and therefore without credit it becomes impossible for them to launch businesses. What we do is give them that needed access to credit, without charging interest, and work with the individual until they are in a better economical situation. 98% of our borrowers are able to pay back their loans within 6-12 months without defaulting and are then ready to take out a larger loan so that they can expand their business.
Education has proven time and again to have an invaluable impact on improving the economic situation of an individual, family and community - giving them the ability to improve the quality of life for themselves and their family and pursue a higher paying job.
Due to this essential and fundamental component, we focus on improving education in the communities we work with, starting with the children. Many of the kids in the areas we work don’t have a safe learning environment to thrive in, or access to educational resources at all. Therefore we raise money to build a schoolhouse in each village/community because we believe education is a right, not a privilege. Depending on the need, we generally provide access to all types of learning materials but focus on supplemental education, tutoring, and foreign language skills, most importantly English.
