We wish to raise $15,000 in order to expand our microloan program by 300 women. These women will receive loans of 150,000 TSH (around $50) each, along with business and finance education and assistance for as long as they need it. Since there are no banks allowed in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area, women must rely solely on microfinance in order to start or expand their small businesses and earn an income. The remote region in Northern Tanzania where we work remains an underserved population.
The Maasai of Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) are pastoralists who traditionally rely on their animals for everything, supplemented with small family gardens. However recently, due to NCA conservation restrictions, they are not allowed to practice agriculture. All food must be imported. There are no jobs in the NCA so the women have no access to cash to feed their families. Without work or money for food, families are forced to break up and leave home in search of income in more urban areas.
Since women are the ones who feed and take care of their families, it is important to empower them with business opportunities. Once armed with business training and loan money to start or expand their small businesses, these women can start to provide for themselves and their families with the money they raise by selling food and other necessary staples. They can continue living their traditional lifestyle, while also raising money for food, school, clothes and shoes for their children.
Expanding the loan program will provide more rural Maasai women with ways to provide for their family, and raise the status of these women in their community. The profit from their businesses will be spent in the village, helping others to start small businesses and keeping the money circulating within the village. With increased income opportunities families can remain together & children can be educated and raised in the traditional lifestyle that they have practiced here for many generations.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
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