Small Enterprise Development
“In my experience, poor people are the world’s greatest entrepreneurs. Every day, they must innovate in order to survive. They remain poor because they do not have the opportunities to turn their creativity into sustainable income.”
Interest Free Business Loan
Small interest free loans are given to individual women currently enrolled in or that have graduated from our Life Skills project to begin or expand a business. These personal businesses are usually selling items such as corn, tomatoes, cheese, grains, soap, yams, etc at their local village market. Eliligibility for this project is contingent on finance class completion and application acceptance.
Garden Project
We partner with Tolaro Global, a local cashew factory, in our agricultural garden project. An agronomist from Tolaro Global teaches PfP women better farming practices with our model garden and PfP in turn sells the vegetables to Tolaro, who uses the vegetable to provide healthy meals for their employees.
Then any remaining vegetables are sold at the local market. Those in the project are encouraged to plant their own home gardens to provide for their families.
Soap & Shea Butter Project
Two other small business projects are the liquid soap project and the shea butter project. These, like the garden project, are large group projects. The women have formed soap and shea butter making cooperatives where they produce and sell local soap that can be used for washing dishes to washing motos and process shea butter to be sold at local market for traditional remedies, cooking, and skin care. They sell the soap both in bulk quantity and in individual bottle for household use.