GFUSA Unveils New Village Phone Manual and Nokia Collaboration at WSIS

GFUSA’s efforts to spur a global Village Phone movement to bring affordable, reliable telecommunication service to rural areas in developing countries was spotlighted at the recent World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). At the UN conference, GFUSA unveiled its new Village Phone Replication Manual, the first blueprint for setting up and running Village Phone programs around the world. With the release of this manual which draws from the experiences of Grameen Bank's original initiative in Bangladesh, and GFUSA's replication project in Uganda, GFUSA hopes to catalyze a global movement that makes telecommunication access a reality for more than 50 million of the world’s rural poor by 2010.

GFUSA also announced a new collaboration with telecommunications giant Nokia designed to accelerate efforts to make universal access, particularly in rural areas of Africa, a reality. Through this cooperation, Nokia will provide cell phones to GFUSA's Village Phone program in Uganda and its pilot in Rwanda. In addition, GFUSA and Nokia will study the broader impact of mobile telecommunications on socio-economic development and individual business integration and will also evaluate microfinance as a sustainable tool to make telecommunications access more affordable.

Held in Tunis, Tunisia, the WSIS conference focused on strategies for using information and communications technology to spur socio-economic development in poor countries. One key concern was promoting universal access to bridge the glaring communication divide between and within countries.

Holiday Special Book Offer: Get Give Us Credit and Banker to the Poor and Help Empower Poor Women Learn and share with friends the powerful story of microfinance. In Give Us Credit, GFUSA President Alex Counts shares his experience living in Bangladesh as a young man and working at Grameen Bank with founder Professor Muhammad Yunus. Buy Give Us Credit directly from GFUSA on Amazon.com and we'll send you a copy autographed by the author. Add the inspiring tale of Dr. Yunus' journey to found Grameen Bank, Banker to the Poor, to your shopping cart via this offer, and a portion of proceeds will benefit GFUSA. Thank you for showing your support by spreading the word about the power of microfinance.

A Life Transformed:
An "Untouchable" Fights Her Way Out of Poverty

As a Dalit, one of India's “Untouchables,” Pentamma was relegated to life of poverty and squalor until she discovered microfinance. In this excerpt from Dana Whitaker's upcoming book, Transforming Lives, $40 at a Time, Pentamma begins her journey to a new future thanks to GFUSA partner SKS, 2005 winner of our Excellence in Microfinance Award.

The branch manager wends his way through Village Singeetam, drawing an ever-swelling crowd of curious onlookers. Finally he arrives at the far edge of the village where Dalits ("Untouchables") have been relegated to live. Pentamma is waiting. Though she has never been visited by so many people, she greets the crowd with a calm nod of resolve.

With clipboard in hand, the manager begins the first phase of his assessment to see if Pentamma qualifies to become an SKS borrower. Using SKS's Housing Index, he scores the quality of her home’s roof and walls, and whether there is running water and electricity. Only if Pentamma’s house scores below a ten, thus ranking her among the poorest of the poor, will she be eligible to proceed with the qualifying process. Her husband earns just Rs30 ($.68) a day, while she earns Rs20 ($.45) for the same job as a day laborer when there is work. With the gaping straw roof covering her miniscule two rooms for four people, lacking both running water and electricity, Pentamma's house scores a six, well within range of eligibility.

Pentamma and four other Dalit women proceed to a neighbor's dirt courtyard where they must now pass the Group Recognition Test. Pentamma clutches a large white piece of paper as she sits cross-legged on a straw mat with her group, their SKS trainer and the branch manager. The crowd presses in from all sides to witness the challenges ahead.

Continue reading Pentamma's story...

GFUSA Honors Front-line Microfinance Practitioners, Launches New Initiative

GFUSA paid tribute to the tenacity and resourcefulness of front-line microfinance practitioners at its 2005 Microfinance Practitioners Awards Program, held in New York City and Dallas, Texas. At its Awards Dinner held in New York on November 2, GFUSA awarded Swayam Krishi Sangam (SKS) of India the 2005 Excellence Award for its outstanding growth, efficiency, and innovative approach to empowering the poorest of the poor. Fonkoze of Haiti received the 2005 Pioneer Award for dynamic work and extraordinary efforts in one of the poorest and most underserved regions of the world.

The program, "Scaling Up to Meet the Challenge of Global Poverty," continued in Dallas with the Knowledge Sharing Roundtable, held November 5. A premier group of international thought leaders and microfinance practitioners explored strategies to increase the effectiveness, reach and impact of microfinance in reducing the rate of global poverty. The roundtable was also a unique opportunity for US-based practitioners to share experiences with their international counterparts.

This year’s roundtable was co-hosted by the Chiapas Project, a GFUSA-affiliated organization that raises funds to support microfinance initiatives in Latin America. On November 4, the Project's founder and GFUSA board member Lucy Billingsley hosted a gathering to announce the Latin America Initiative, which includes plans to raise US $3.5 million over the next three years for the region. Over 150 people attended, including baseball star Alfonso Soriano.

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In this issue

Nokia collaboration and Village Phone manual unveiled

An "Untouchable" transforms her life

GFUSA honors practitioners, launches new initiative

Newsbriefs

GFUSA Growth Guarantees Closes $31 Million Financing - GFUSA president Alex Counts recently signed documents formally closing the first $31 million of the Growth Guarantees, GFUSA's largest financing program yet. The closing of the first round is a momentous landmark on the road to a targeted $50 million total expected to be achieved over the next year, which could guarantee up to $300 million in loans to the poor worldwide.

Philippines Partner Shares Its Success with GFUSA Staff - During a recent visit to GFUSA headquarters, senior managers of GFUSA partner TSPI noted that many expected microfinance to fail when TSPI first opened its doors in the Philippines in 1981. Now, almost 25 years later, microfinance has become a critical tool in international development and is fully supported by the Filipino government. As evidence of that support, one manager pointed to commemorations of the UN International Year of Microcredit: "One of the first things the government did was to print 20 peso notes with the Year of Microcredit logo... because it's the denomination that poor people use." The Filipino government also regularly consults the Microfinance Council of the Philippines, of which TSPI is a founding member.

Former PLAN Fund Client Reaches Back to Help Others - A mere 12 months after receiving his second loan from the PLAN Fund, a GFUSA partner, Sam Hills returned to the Dallas-based microfinance institution -- this time as a board member. In September 2005, Hills became the organization's first former borrower to join its board of directors. The founder and president of S&A Oxygen Express, a medical equipment company based in Mesquite, Texas, Hills first approached the PLAN Fund in 2003 when commercial banks turned down his loan applications. Two loans and 30 months later, S&A now employs five full-time employees, and in 2004 earned almost $300,000.

Now Available: Frequently Asked Questions about GFUSA – To help our readers learn more about GFUSA and microfinance, we have compiled lists of questions commonly asked about GFUSA and microfinance. We hope that these Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) will help visitors to our website quickly locate answers to their questions about our work. Please take a look at our FAQs About GFUSA and FAQs About Microfinance; if you think of other questions that you would like to see answered, let us know. Thanks for your help.

UN Ends Year-long Microcredit Celebration on High Note – Several high-profile events marked the International Year of Microcredit which ended with a gala and forum on November 7-8. This first international celebration of microfinance proved that global community finally acknowledged that even the poor deserve access to credit. And, from the G8 Summit to the UN General Assembly to the Clinton Global Initiative, world leaders paid close attention to the power and potential of microfinance to lift more of the world’s poorest people out of poverty. GFUSA board chair Susan Davis and president Alex Counts joined the celebration in New York City, where celebrities including Walter Cronkite, Chelsea Clinton, and Jennifer Lopez were present to honor outstanding microfinance clients from around the world.

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