Pedal for Peace 2008

Your contribution helps empower the process of microcredit. Your money will be put directly in the hands of microentrepreneurs in Nicaragua who will use the capital to invest in their small business, generating a life-transforming income which will better allow them to feed and clothe their family while taking steps to generating a sustained income.

Microcredit is a sustainable process, as loans given out generate interest which help pay distribution costs and are also put towards other loans. My initial US$5,000 grant which was distributed among 28 individuals in 2 microcredit banks is now worth US$7,100 after just one year. That’s C$132,000 in the local currency. This appreciating loan amount ensures that the beneficial effects of microcredit are distributed among other members of Nueva Guinea. Your donation helps enhance this process.

The benefit of this microcredit process I saw clearly when I worked with the Foundation for International Community Assistance (FINCA) Nicaragua in the formation of microcredit village banks for the completion of a Project for Peace grant I won through my university, Wheaton College. I saw first had, the life-transforming impact these microloans can have in the lives of their recipients. Microcredit works by putting small sums of capital in the hands of microentrepreneurs so they can invest it in the expansion or initiation of their microenterprise. 50 to 300 dollars were the size of the loans FINCA worked with, and over the course of the six month period of the loan, I witnessed the empowerment putting capital in the hands of new microentrepreneurs can have.

I’ll let the voices of the microentrepreneurs speak for themselves.

Norma Estela Pavon Gonzalez, of colonia Puerto Principe, explained how her microloan transformed her life: “We were all really and excited for this loan at the beginning. This loan has permitted us to buy more, sell more, and grow more. This loan truly is an aid that has helped all of us.”

Susana Venador Hernandez, a FINCA client from Colonia El Verdun, responded to my question about “how has this loan affected your life over the past three months?” She answered “my family, we’re not lacking food or clothes anymore.”

Esperanza Suarez explained her excitement about her new microcredit loan and how she expects it to help her: “Clearly I’m very excited about this opportunity; I applied for this loan because it’s going to help me, little by little. I am going to invest the total amount of this loan in my business and then I’m going to look at my options for a much larger loan after.”

In conditions of such extreme poverty, words like these represent the hope microcredit has to empower individuals to gain economic self-sufficiency over their lives and begin the rise out of conditions of poverty.

Your donation’s impact:

• $50 can provide a first loan to a new FINCA Village Banker.
• $250 can provide one year’s worth of working capital to a new FINCA Village Banker.
• $1,000 provides start-up capital for 20 poor women to start their own businesses.
• $5,000 can sponsor a Village Bank in a region where FINCA currently operates.
• $60,000 can enable FINCA to enter a new region in a country where we currently operate.

See the impact of your contributions on our Donation Calculator.