Small Enterprise Development- Micro Finance

We have all heard the old proverb, “If you give a man a fish he eats for a day and if you teach him to fish he eats forever.” This guy must have dabbled in the arena of micro-finance. Micro-finance at its core is true community development. It’s true. If you want to really change a person, a village, a community and eventually a nation, I really believe business development is going to be the key. So, we started a new program aimed at investing seed money into individuals with the dream of starting their own businesses. This new program is called SED (Small Enterprise Development). Micro-finance has the power to truly change a community. However, we have taken our program one step farther. The typical micro-finance structure gives small loans to individuals to create or expand their small businesses. As a loan in the third world, these micro-finance institutions typically charge a high interest rate on the money that is borrowed. While the typical micro-finance model does work as small business is being developed with injections of small amounts of cash, it is our vision to provide interest free loans. Our interest free loan program works the same way as a typical micro-finance structure but our recipients keep more of the money for their families and business since they do not have to pay interest on the loans. In lieu of interest, we do require a percentage back from each participant through our SED program. This percentage goes towards a program that teaches skills to young girls. It is our vision to work with young girls to teach them to dream and aspire to great things. In our young girls program we teach them life skills, business skills and that they have a value, a plan and a purpose. It is a time to take the lid of the typical expectations of a woman in the Beninese culture and become the catalyst for them to begin to dream.
As of right now, we have 31 SED projects in our program. These 31 businesses are solely comprised of women-owned ventures. These ventures include selling yams and corn at the market to a processed cheese product called Wagasi. They range from a finished food product called Toubani which is like a bean cake to Kerosene as well as several other small ventures centered in agricultural items.
We plan to continue to grow this program and add new projects monthly. Loans are given on a 1-2 month term basis. With your help, we will continue to expand this program and change Benin through the power of business development.


Here are a few photos of one of our ladies. Her name is Zakari. She is married with 2 children. She sells yams at the market.


Zakari at her yam stand



Closing the sale!!!