Grameen Foundation : Resource Center : Print Newsletter : Fall 2003 : Borrower Profile: Annette Michael
Borrower Profile: Annette Michael
Project Enterprise (PE) provides tiny loans and other financial services to micro-entrepreneurs in the New York City area who are living at or below the poverty line. GFUSA has provided both financial and high level volunteer support to PE since 1998. Since then, PE has helped determined individuals like Annette Michael (profiled below) overcome obstacles and setbacks to achieve economic stability and success.
Before she discovered Project Enterprise in 2000, Annette Michael had suffered a string of misfortunes. During the mid-1990s she worked fulltime at a bank and ran a small Caribbean catering company on the side to make ends meet. (Annette is originally from the Republic of Guyana.) During one of her catering jobs, she fell down a flight of stairs and injured her back. This injury was aggravated during a car accident in August 1998, leaving her unable to walk for six months.
While on disability, Annette returned to school to earn the licenses needed to sell insurance and investments. When she recovered enough to return to work at the bank, she was fired in a matter of weeks. Unfortunately, this occurred on the same day that she had realized a life-long dream by purchasing a small house. She and her three children were forced to immediately rent out some of their new space in order to make ends meet. When her tenants did not pay their rent, and an unexpected termite problem arose, she quickly found herself $20,000 in debt.
Annette tried to support herself by selling Amway and Tupperware products, but she lacked the working capital she needed to make these efforts profitable. One day, a friend mentioned that Project Enterprise might be a good source of working capital and a way to make contacts with other micro-entrepreneurs. "The reason I joined Project Enterprise," she says now, "was to get the funding to purchase a laptop computer, because it would make my presentations to potential customers faster and more impressive."
Annette joined a PE solidarity group and began the business training courses that are delivered as part of the loan process. In February 2000, she opened her own insurance agency, the ACM Agency. ACM began humbly with two clients, but now serves more than eight hundred. "Persistence is what makes this business work," she says. "If you are friendly and helpful to your clients, they refer you to friends and family." The PE system of networking has played a key role in building Annette's business. She has an expanding network of clients, from pastry chefs to electricians. "Every single one of my clients knows where I got started. I tell all of them about PE."
To this day Annette still attends borrower meetings to help promote Project Enterprise's good work, although she has graduated from the program and no longer needs to rely on microloans to sustain her business. In recognition of her unique insights into running micro-businesses in New York and how organizations like Project Enterprise can best support them, she was elected to PE's Board of Directors in 2002. "Project Enterprise wanted someone who really grasped the spirit of PE, and how important it is to grassroots economic development in New York," explains Annette. As an avid and vocal supporter of the organization and one of its many success stories, Annette not only grasps the spirit of PE, she embodies it.
Grameen Foundation : Resource Center : Print Newsletter : Fall 2003 : Borrower Profile: Annette Michael
Grameen Foundation uses microfinance and innovative technology to fight global poverty and bring opportunities to the world's poorest people. With tiny loans and financial services, we help the poor, mostly women, start businesses and escape poverty. Our global network of 55 microfinance institution (MFI) partners including our Growth Guarantee partners has touched more than 34 million people in 24 countries. In addition, we introduced and now sustain technology initiatives (Mifos and Village Phone) in Cameroon, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, bringing our total country outreach to 28.
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