In 2009, The Greater Contribution sponsored seven Village Banks, three in Malawi and four in Haiti. Each bank provides loans to approximately 300 people per year, improving the lives of 1500 people (each loan helps an average family of five). With these seven banks, we are now benefitting 10,500 people each year!
Our first Village Bank, The Tilimbike Village Bank is in Nchalo, Malawi. The climate is ripe for microfinance in Malawi. Poor and rural people have very limited access to financial services and the few commercial banks tend to focus on businesses in urban areas so micro loans are needed to fill the gap in rural areas.
MEET SOME OF OUR BORROWERS
Our clients, mostly women, have modest businesses, selling second hand clothes or products such as cooking oil, goat meat, fish, tomatoes, freezes and snacks. But these business make all the difference between living in perpetual poverty and creating a sustainable living for themselves and their families. Here are some of the women who have received loans from our first micro loan village bank.
One of our borrowers, Grace Chilongo, writes: "My name is Grace Chilongo and I am a client of the Tilimbike Village Bank. The bank has really improved my standard of living because my business is selling freezes--sweet frozen treats. With my loan, I was able to buy a refrigerator to keep them cold during the day and overnight for the next day. I say thank you!"
ABOUT MALAWI
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Malawi, a landlocked, sub-tropical country in southern Africa, is one of the world's least developed countries.
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Malawi's average annual per capita income is just $600.
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Some 65 percent of the population is considered poor and 29 percent live in dire poverty.
HOW DO WE PROVIDE THESE MICRO LOANS?
In keeping with our belief that we should not re-invent the wheel we work in partnership with FINCA, a highly respected international humanitarian agency that has provided micro loans to the poor since 1984 and now operates in 20 countries around the globe. They are our feet on the ground in the communities that we support with micro loans, providing 25 years of expertise in delivering and administering the loans we fund.