- International Projects -
- Central and South America -
2009 JBF SUPPORTS NAMASTEDIRECT BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT WITH MICROCREDIT PROGRAM IN GUATEMALA
The Julia Burke Foundation has partnered once again with NamasteDirect (www.Namaste-Direct.org) and supported fifty women with microcredit loans. The primary purpose of the new program is to ensure that microcredit loans are being used to create or augment viable businesses owned by impoverished women. Each borrower is offered a comprehensive support system to encourage the success of the client and her business. Many women are operating businesses involving industries that they have been practicing since childhood – raising animals, growing vegetables, traditional weaving, and making tortillas – however, they have very little knowledge of what it takes to build a profitable business. The first ten women to enter the Namaste Business Development with Microcredit Program back in September have just completed their first loan cycle.
Business advisor teaching clients how to separate business money from personal money
2008 TILAPIA FISH POND PROJECT IN GUATEMALA
The Foundation has teamed up with TechnoServe to provide support to the Women’s Committee (WC) of the El Oreganal community in Zacapa, Guatemala as they implement tilapia fish cultivation in land-based ponds. Not only will the harvest bring healthy, protein-rich fish into their regular diets, it will also create jobs and income. In this region of Guatemala, women often receive little education, and their economic and social participation is severely limited. The introduction of education and marketable skills will do much to change this. Therefore, TechnoServe will train the WC in cultivation methods, as well as organizational and business skills. In addition, support from the Foundation will help to purchase essential equipment. As a result, the program will increase household incomes and decrease economically-motivated migration.
However, the ultimate accomplishment will lie outside the pond. The boost to the economy will empower local women to further improve living conditions for their families and community, and enable them to seek out new business ventures.
For more information, visit www.TechnoServe.org
2008 NEW “NAMASTE BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT WITH MICROCREDIT” PROGRAM IN GUATEMALA
The Foundation has funded a new pilot microcredit loan program that includes basic business education and vocational training to borrowers in Guatemala. Our partner organization NamasteDirect (www.Namaste-Direct.org) has implemented this new type of support program to better prepare borrowers to succeed with microcredit opportunities. The program is unique in that it establishes a solidarity group, typically composed of one hundred women. The solidarity group is then divided into trust banks of 10–20 women. The women are then given access to a support team consisting of a business advisor, a loan officer, and a vocational specialist. The intense involvement of the three person support team is designed to provide these women entrepreneurs the chance for a profitable business. The direct result of funding these microcredit loans have helped further NamasteDirect’s mission of alleviating poverty in Mayan communities in Guatemala.
Women borrowers participate in a “Borrowers Conference"
2007 MICROLOAN PROJECT IN GUATEMALA
Our 2007 project in Guatemala, operated by NamasteDirect (www.Namaste-Direct.org) and the in-country partner, Edubanco/CARE (www.care.org) is funding loans to a new group of 100 women in the rural community of Motagua. This group is one of the first groups formed within the new “Times Five” Program, meaning that brand new borrowers’ microloans will be funded through this grant for five years.
2003 PROJECT WITH THE POLUS CENTER AT THE VIDA NUEVA
PROSTHETIC CLINIC IN CHOLUTECA, HONDURAS FOR LANDMINE ACCIDENT SURVIVORS
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell once recognized the Polus Center as having "created path-breaking, community-based programs in Nicaragua and Honduras, providing artificial limbs to the poorest of the poor" and the US Agency for International Development's Leahy War Victims Fund has reported that the artificial limbs produced are "durable and of the highest quality."
Vida Nueva exemplifies the Polus Center's approach of working at the grassroots level and working towards sustainable solutions. By training local people, many of whom are prosthesis users themselves, to become prosthetic technicians using appropriate technologies and components that can be purchased locally, and fostering strong relationships within the community, Vida Nueva is building towards self-sufficiency both financially and in expertise, despite the fact that the average prosthesis costs about $600, almost one year's income ($730) of the average Honduran. The Julia Burke Foundation grant provided new prosthetic limbs and related services to the 47 people on the waiting list at the clinic.
2008 PROJECT WITH JUNTOS ADELANTE IN NICARAGUA
Currently, The Julia Burke Foundation is partnering with Juntos Adelante in a program to train nurses to work in rural villages in Nicaragua. Because the large cities attract many healthcare workers with job opportunities and higher wages, the villages are left with few trained nurses to serve the village community. The program will train village residents who are willing to stay in their village and have already received their high school diploma. The Julia Burke Foundation grant will be used to train ten auxiliary nurses at the Leonel Rugama Health Center in Estelí, to help ensure that rural Nicaraguan villages receive community health services.
For more information, visit www.JuntosAdelante.org
Bethany Golden and Angela Rogers (co-founders of Juntos Adelante) with future nurses, the director of nursing (Ramona Alfaro) and the Director of Health for the municipality (Dr. Pino)
2008 MICROLOANS TO PERUVIAN ENTREPRENUERS
Through generous donations from friends of The Julia Burke Foundation a grant was given to Kiva for the purpose of lending microloans to entrepeneurs in Peru. Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world. For more information, visit www.kiva.org
