By Jess Littman | Social Media Intern
This January, the Women's Microfinance Initiative celebrate its five-year anniversary. Since our humble start in 2008, we've given over 8,000 loans to poor women in rural East Africa. The women are using these loans to start and grow small businesses so that they can support themselves, send their children to school, and gain standing in the community.
Our local director in Uganda, Olive Wolimbwa, discusses WMI's progress over the last five years in this video. Olive notes that borrowers are purchasing land and building houses, using formal banking services, enjoying more peaceful households, and learning business skills from WMI trainers.
A few months ago, WMI launched a new loan hub - a village where we partner with a community based organization to start a loan program - in Ngarendare, Kenya. Read the inspiring story of a woman who grew up there in our spring newsletter.
In April, WMI helds its first countrywide conference in Mbale, Uganda. Leaders from each of our Ugandan loan hubs attended to share ideas and best practices. They also participated in panels led by microfinance experts.
As WMI grows, we need your support more than ever to ensure that we are doing our best in every community we work with.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can recieve an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
Support this important cause by creating a personalized fundraising page.
Start a Fundraiser