Grameen Foundation : Resource Center : Print Newsletter : Fall 2005 : GFUSA in Latin America and the Caribbean
GFUSA Expands Network in Latin America and the Caribbean
More than 90,000 families already reached, with goal of 277,000 by 2008
Elvira Hernandez in El Salvador used to live with her family squeezed into a one-room hut with a mud floor and no furniture. Her life began to change with a $57 loan from Las Mélidas, a microfinance institution (MFI) and partner of Grameen Foundation USA (GFUSA). Elvira used that first loan to buy a large pot and ingredients to cook tamales to sell in the community. When she paid it back, she took a second loan of $80 to buy chickens and expand her small business. Next she added bananas to her wares. By her fourth successful loan, Elvira’s business was thriving. She was astonished to have working capital of $360 – beyond her wildest dreams. Now successful, Elvira can think about buying a refrigerator, sending her children to school and building a small house where she can live with her family.If you consider Elvira’s story inspiring, try multiplying her success by 92,000 hard-working poor women. That’s how many impoverished families in Latin America and the Caribbean had benefited by mid-2005 from microfinance services provided by GFUSA’s partners in Latin America and the Caribbean. By the end of this year, those partner microfinance institutions (MFIs) expect to have reached 31,501 new women an their families, and 277,000 by 2008.
GFUSA’s commitment to the rural poor in Latin America and the Caribbean dates back to 1998 when it supported the establishment of Al Sol, the highly successful MFI in Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state. Going forward, GFUSA will be helping eight small MFIs in four countries reach out to even more rural poor families, and two larger MFIs in Haiti and Bolivia. The significant work of our Haiti partner, Fonkoze, has earned it the 2005 Pioneer Award for its impact in bettering the lives of poor families there. ProMujer, our partner in Bolivia, was a finalist for the accolade.
GFUSA’s strength in the region is made possible in large part to support from Fund for the Poor and The Chiapas Project. These donors, among others, open doors for thousands more women to start their own self-sustaining business, like the one pictured left, who used her small loan to start a tortilla business. Fund for the Poor has provided two leadership gifts of nearly $2 million that allowed six MFIs in the region to scale-up their outreach. The Chiapas Project is a grassroots initiative of enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers in Dallas, Texas that has neared their goal of raising $790,000 for our work i Chiapas, but is now looking to extend its support to our work regionally.
To learn more about GFUSA’s successful work in Latin America and the Caribbean, contact Ximena Arteaga, xarteaga@gfusa.org
Grameen Foundation : Resource Center : Print Newsletter : Fall 2005 : GFUSA in Latin America and the Caribbean
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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