Micro Loans For Women Impacted by HIV/AIDS, Zambia

Wishing you and your family a 2019 filled with peace and joy!

Power of Love’s micro loans program has been providing business training and loans to women impacted and/or infected by HIV since 2005. Most loan beneficiaries are grandmothers/single women taking care of multiple orphaned children, have little education, and no source of income. Many of these women are HIV positive and need our support. Beneficiaries of this program are about 2,800 family members as each woman (we have 400 at present) cares for seven people on average. As we close 2018, we wanted to give you an overview of program activities, their impact, and our plan for the upcoming year.  

Impact

In a relatively short span of time (12-20 months), most women are economically and socially empowered. They are running businesses that help pay for food, medicines, rent, school expenses, are more financially literate, and enjoy a higher social status. In addition, the children are improving in health, attending school, and families are more knowledgeable about HIV and malaria which leads to prevention of these diseases.   

Highlights of program activities in 2018

• Active Loans: Currently, we have 400 women running businesses that benefit approximately 2800 family members.  
• Larger loan amounts: Beginning in November 2018, we increased the loan capital provided to women. This should help in increasing revenues and profits from businesses.
• Business training: 175 new women were provided with business training in 2018.
• Refresher training: 93 women were provided with this training in 2018. 
• Recovery after cholera outbreak: Businesses impacted by the cholera outbreak earlier this year, have stabilized.     
• Weekly Support Meetings: All women meet weekly to make repayments, learn from other business owners, and discuss issues of importance to them such as HIV prevention and care, importance of school, and challenges faced in running their businesses. These meetings result in women building strong social networks.  
• Ongoing business monitoring: All businesses are visited on-site by the loans officer to provide business advice on product display, maintenance of accounts, book keeping, inventory management etc. 
• School and skills training: Earnings form businesses helped pay for school expenses and/or skills training for more than 2,500 children.
• Pilot Internship module: We added a pilot module to the existing business training modules. This module is a hands-on internship to be completed before receipt of a loan. 
• Mentoring club: This volunteer club is run by graduates. Club members mentor new loans recipients by encouraging them to work hard, face challenges, and keep their children in school.
• Repayments rates: Loan repayment rates are between 88-90% despite difficult circumstances faced by most women.

Overall, this program continues to make a significant and sustained impact on the lives of thousands of community residents.

 Plan for 2019

• Provide new loans and business training to 50 women in March 2019.
• Provide business training and loans to 80-100 new women to replace women who graduate.
• Provide refresher training to at least 100 women after they complete the first loan cycle.
• Provide business mentoring training to 200 women.
• Encourage club members of the volunteer mentoring club to mentor an additional 20-25 women in 2019.
• Track the 400 active businesses intensively so they continue to operate in the community even after the women graduate.
• Track businesses run by graduates to learn from past experiences.

Thanks for giving hundreds of vulnerable women an opportunity to become successful entrepreneurs.  

Links:

• About our Micro Loans program
• Impact of our Micro loans Program
• Business and ongoing training makes our program unique.