.Women-to-women loans provide the means of opening avenues of
productivity for women in stifling poverty. Opportunity Fund for Developing
Countries (OFDC) has had much success in managing small
loans to women in Guatemala, Bolivia, Kenya, and Nepal. Mama Jonas is a woman who
took out a loan for a sewing machine several years ago. When that
loan was repaid, she took out a loan for fabric. That repaid, she now has a
loan for growing maize and carrots. Her harvest is good and she
will have no problem repaying the loan. She is a widow with 4
children.
Isaac and Everline are siblings who work hard to help people in their
village. Five years
ago, they had no sugar to offer guests for tea. Last year they had sugar but
no milk. They have a
cow but they sold the milk for income. This visit, they had sugar
and milk for their tea.
Five years ago OFDC gave Everline her first loan. Since that time she has been
able to save 5,000 shillings or about $70. That is excellent. They are faithful with other
women, and some men, in attendance at basic literacy, simple
bookkeeping, family planning, HIV/AIDS awareness and women’s rights
classes. Donations
allow the classes to be free and provide tea and ugali for lunch. A self-supported health
clinic, run by Violet, Everline’s sister who is a nurse, is also
supported with donations.
People are charged what they can afford to pay.
Lerer is about ten years old. She lives with her brother
and grandmother in a mud house that is as wide as one can stretch
their arms and not much longer. The house barely holds the
single bed that she and her brother share with their
grandmother. The
cooking fire is right there next to the bed. Donations have provided
her with a mosquito net and school uniform so that she can now
attend school. At age ten
she is beginning her first
grade
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