Our international committee has given out seven more small loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries via microfinance organisation Lendwithcare. Recent loan recipients (in the Philippines x2, Vietnam, Rwanda, Pakistan, Ecuador and Zambia) have all requested loans for farming-related activities.
Lendwithcare is a microfinance organisation that aims to help people in developing countries out of poverty through small business loans. Each of the seven recent recipients received £45 towards their target.
For example, one loan went to a 42-year-old Tinh, a farmer who lives in a mountainous area in Vietnam’s Thanh Hoa province. Tinh has worked as a stone mason for 15 years, but has been finding it hard to make ends meet thanks to fluctuating customer demand. He and his wife have started to raise cattle and goats to supplement their income. Goats are preferred as they require less grazing than cattle. With what will be his second loan, Tinh hopes to invest in ten more goats (and their feed). He hopes to grow the goats and sell them for a higher price at a later date. Tinh and his wife have three children; while the eldest child is now at university, his younger two are still at school. The loan, ultimately, will help the whole family.
The latest loans bring the total number of loans since we opened our account in 2016 to 314. In total our loans are estimated to have amounted to more than £10,000 and helped a total of 3996 family members.
You can find out more about Lendwithcare here – or click here to find out more about the support that our Rotary Club has provided. (There are many other Rotary Clubs that also lend via Lendwithcare.)
Picture: Screenshot of our Lendwithcare account showing how we have helped since we opened our account.
