Missions of Love

Dear Friends,
I know that it has been a long time since I sent an update regarding the microfinance program in Jolivert, Haiti.

[Update]

We offered 5 $100 loans last September. From that group, every single woman has paid on time and has remained current. Three of those women are going to soon pay off their loan and will take out $150 to expand their businesses. Further, in this first year we have learned a lot about how to simplify the reporting for the Haitians to us.

Second, we’ll be starting a new group this fall, probably October 1st. We’re working to increase the level of reporting from Haiti. MaryEllen Sanok (my mom) was down there in June and met with the women and did an external audit, everything looks great! Women are paying back the loans and their businesses are going well. Each woman reported that they can now feed their kids three meals a day and send their kids to school, which they were unable to do last year.

Year One has exceed all of our expectations!

[Now What?]

We have received several donations recently that have assisted us in our needs for this year. Thanks to all of you for your prayers, donations, and advocacy. This is where we can go from here:

1. Please consider going to Haiti to meet with the women, you could share your business skills, teach them a craft, or volunteer with one of the other community programs that Missions of Love offers.
2. Donate to Missions of Love to assist with other programs that have immediate needs. This year, MOL has had a decline overall in giving. Consider helping with one of their numerous programs.

3. Donate for future microfinance needs. We want to continue to grow the program in a steady manner that allows us to do it in a way that is prudent. With that said, next year we will offer more loans. Yes, that money is recycled back into the program, but when we add groups, we want to make sure we have enough to continue on and expand.

4. Set up a speaking engagement maybe you have a group of friends, a church, or a civic group that wants to know more about Haiti and microfinance, we’d love to send someone to speak about what we’re doing.

Thank you for what you’ve been doing to further the movement to help people in Haiti. If you’re interested in getting more involved, please let me know. Peace.
Joe

Tags: Microfinance

This entry was posted by Amy Wolf on Tuesday, August 25th, 2009 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Other. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.