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SDD is working very hard to convince all the parents to send their children to school, instead of letting them work on the land. Although more hands mean more income, the future of the children will be much brighter once they are able to read and write.
It would be much easier to convince the parents if they don't lose any income when their children spent (more) time in school. To be able to do so, new or improved more efficient methods of commercial and agricultural businesses could be organized. Through economic development we can improve the situation of the entire village, including its children.
We are looking for volunteers with experience in starting up, developing and running small businesses. Some research needs to be done into the kind of small (home) companies useful to the particular area in India and we need advice on how to implement this strategy in the village.
Some of our ideas:
- designing and making clothes
- processing agricultural produce
- small electrical firms
- repair workshops
- etc.
We would like to get in contact with Micro Finance Institutions and it would be great if we can get help in writing proposals and/or business plans as well.
The women of Yoshinkhel are trying to build up a professional small business from their knitting skills...but they lack the necessary business skills and tools for setting up a business!
Can you help them by developing an online training or tools/files/software specific to their needs? Or would you even be willing to come to Yoshinkhel as volunteer? Or do you have experience you would like to share?
Though Sabina is a student of management and accounting, she knows the theory but still needs a practical handling system to work the small business effectively and efficiently.
Eddy would like to have a template developed that they can easily utilize to have business cards printed for the members of Hope Alive Uganda. Business cards would be very useful to them when they are out in the community seeking support and be used to provide others with their contact information. Eddy would like the cards to include the logo that is developed to represent the organization.
For this task, Eddy is looking for someone to develop a business card template so that it can be used to to print cards as needed.
Currently there are 4 computers in the Garden business centre (internet cafe). Business has been coming in steadily and the aim is that these 4 computers will be used to their maximum capacity each day. Profits generated by the centre will be re-invested into the YOFOSO youth programmes and into expanding the capabilities of the business centre. Purchasing additional equipment such as a photocopier, or more computers and printers is part of the business plan.
We are looking for Neighbours who can investigate micro-finance organisations that operate in Zambia and to also get in touch with them about loan criteria, required paperwork, loan duration, interest, fees etc.
As YOFOSO is a registered community based organization the business centre now has the capacity to generate income, therefore obtaining a micro-loan could be a way forward. Please let us know what you find out…
The women have proven their talents in handicrafts, and they wish to market them on a broader level. In preparation, they would like to be trained on small business skills.
Materials and/or Training (online, physical, books, etc.) are sought to give the women the education needed so they can feel ready to cope with the challenges ahead.
Currently, Micro-credit was provided to the people in Madurai for carrying out the following activities:
1. Flower Vending
2. Tea Stall
3. Cloth Vending
4. Sugar Cane Juice
5. Grocery shop
6. Milk Vending
7. Trycycle
8. Vegetable Vending
9. Sewing Machine
10. Idly Shop
11. Bakery
12. Fancy Store
13. Bottle cap
14. Dry Fish
15. Petty Shop
16. Basket Making
17. Rice Grinding
18. Ironing
19. Goat rearing
20. Selling toys
Any useful ideas on starting up and running the above small businesses in Madurai will be warmly welcomed.
GUILDANCE MICROFINANCE
Guildance Community Development Foundation need the assistant of volunteers/neighbour to write proposal,research donor,link us to NGO in Canada,USA,UK etc that is interested in funding microfinance.This will also include website design
OBJECTIVE;
• To tackle poverty which had been the bane of development of our people by creating an institution that will assist in improving their income generation, promote their understanding of social problem and ultimately enhance the quality of their living standards.
• To nurture, encourage, and support local level investments in income and employment generating activities.
• To empower the people that our organization had already trained in various vocations to enable them practice the new acquired skills at a sustainable level.
• To put in place a pay back mechanism for every loan given to beneficiaries such that the microfinance bank will be self sustaining in maximum of 3 years.
• To create product and services that will be used to drive deposit and create credit for the sustainability of the microfinance bank.
• To embark on capacity building that will give the beneficiaries of our services the needed managerial and entrepreneurship skill that will make the assistance gotten a life lasting one.
• To obtain a license to operate a micro finance bank which will serve as vehicle/organization to drive and actualize the above objectives.
EXPLANATION OF OUR OBJECTIVES
POVERTY ALLEVIATION: Over the years the Government of Nigeria had embarked on series of policy and institutional reforms aimed at enhancing the flow of finance from the Banking system to small and medium scale industries as well as those that engaged in petty businesses (micro) activities. The convectional Banks perceive micro activities as bad risk; hence the very low of funding to the sector couple with the issues of high cost of fund and the short tenure nature of those funds. Since robust economic growth cannot be achieved without putting in place well focused programs to reduce poverty through empowering the people by increasing their access to credit, the government through the central bank of Nigeria CBN as part of its reform agenda embarked on the micro finance bank aimed at providing financial services to the poor who are not served by the conventional financial institution.
In the past, Nigeria Government has initiated series of micro/ rural programs targeted at the poor with the overriding objective of making credit readily available to those who were traditionally denied access to credit. Such credit was used for the development of small and medium industries which is the springboard for sustainable development in all emerging economies like Nigeria. The government has shown a great concern for the development of SMIs because of the underlying socio economic factors plaguing the nation. Some of the reasons include the past policies failed to generate efficient self sustaining impetus needed to uplift the country to the take-off stage of growth, the increased emphasis on self reliant approach to the development and the recognition that dynamic and growing petty business can contribute substantially to a wide range of developmental objectives. However the full potential of the micro business in the developmental process have not been realized owing to numerous bottlenecks. In the light of this, the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN as part of its reform agenda. Initiated micro finance Banks, a policy initiative aimed at bringing credit to the door step of those that do not have such access under the conventional financial system. The thrust of this paper is to articulate the prospects of the micro finance bank towards boosting the performance of the micro business thereby reducing the level of poverty and enhancing employment generation.
MICRO FINANCE
There are several definitions of the concept of micro finance. It is about providing financial services to the active poor who are traditionally not served by the convectional financial institutions. It is the provision of very small loans (micro credit) to the poor, to help them engage in new productive business activities. It includes a broader range of services mainly credit, savings, insurance, money transfers, loans, and other financial products targeted at the poor.
Micro- financing is not a new phenomenon in the Nigerian society as evidenced by cultural economic activities such as “Esusu” Ajo” ADASHI” “OTATAJE” which were practiced to provide funds for producers in our rural communities. The effort of government in Nigeria is to monetize micro financing in our rural and urban communities to improve the productive capacity of the rural and urban poor, enhance their economic standing which alleviates the level of poverty and aggregated to improve development of the national economy.
MICRO CREDIT
Micro credit refers to small loans made to low income individuals to sustain self employment or to start up very small businesses. Although there is no standard definition of micro credit, in practice such loans are quite small amounting to a few thousand of Naira. Simply put micro finance is the provision of very small loan to the poor to help them engage in new productive business activities or expand or strengthens existing ones.
SMALL AND MEDIUM INDUSTRIES SMI
The concept of SMIs is relative and dynamic. The definitions changes over a period of time and depend largely on a country’s level of development prior to 1992. Different government agencies in Nigeria such as the Centre Bank of Nigeria, The Nigerian Bank for Commerce and Industry, the Centre for Industrial Research and Development (CIRD) and the National Economic Reconstruction Fund (NERFUND) adopted various definitions of SMIs probably due to difference in policy focus.
However in 1996, the National Council of Industries streamlined the various definitions in order to remove ambiguities and agreed to revise them every four years. Small scale enterprises were defined as those with Fixed assets above N1m but not exceeding N10m excluding land but including working capital while Medium Scale Enterprises are those with Fixed asset excluding land but including working capital of over N10m but not exceeding N40m. the definition were revised in 1996 with small scale industry defined as those with total cost, including working capital but excluding cost of land above N1m but not exceeding N40m with a labour size of between 36 and 100 workers.
CBN MICROFINANCE POLICY
The Central Bank of Nigeria has put in place the following strategic measure to license and regulate the establishment of micro finance banks as well as promoting the establishment of NGO based micro finance institutions. In fact a lot of funds by many NGO channeled towards micro finance were undocumented. Under the current dispensation, the bank has put in place a well coordinated policy meant for NGOs which will equally have a great impact on micro activities. The state and local Governments will be encouraged to participate in micro finance industry by engaging them to devote at least one percent of their annual budgets to micro credit initiatives which would be micro banks. The regulatory institutions for the micro finance banks would be strengthened and a campaign for transparency, professionalism and good governance would be pursued with vigor. Financially, domestic savings would be adequately mobilized while the capital base of the existing microfinance institutions would be followed up by continuous training of the regulators, operators and the beneficiaries from the policy.
CHARACTERISTICS OF MICRO BUSINESS ACTIVITIES
Micro finance as a concept is on economic development approach intended to benefit low income women and men. The term refers to the provision of financial services to low income clients, including the self employed. Financial services generally include savings and credits; however, some microfinance organizations also provide insurance and payment services. In addition to financial intermediation many MFIs provide social intermediation services such as group formation, development of self confidence and training in financial literacy and management capabilities among members of a group. Hence the definition of microfinance often includes both financial intermediation and social intermediation.
Microfinance is not simply banking, it is a development tool.
Microfinance activities usually involves
• Small loans typically for working capital
• Informal appraisal of business and investment
• Collateral substitutes such as group guarantees or compulsory savings
• Access to repeat and larger loans, based on repayment performance
• Streamline loan disbursement and monitoring
• Secure savings
• Enterprises development services such as skill training and marketing and social services.
Microfinance clients are typically self employed, low income entrepreneurs in both urban and rural areas. Clients are often traders, street vendors, small farmers, service providers such as Hairdressers, drivers, Rose plantains sellers and artisans and small producers such as blacksmith and welders. Usually their activities provide a stable source of income (Often from more than one activity)
The poor are bankable, as they can save, invest repay loans and have need for insurance services. The challenge of micro finance is not repayment of loan given to the poor; the poor have integrity and must meet some stipulated conditions before draw down. The challenge is actually generation of enough deposit to meet the rate of loan request due to the level of poverty in the country. Our experience as explained below would testify to our claim that with more fund at our disposal we surely make a lot of people cross the Rubicon of poverty.
EFFECT OF OUR EXPERIENCE IN OUR NGO (GUILDANCE COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION)
We have injected lives to many people in Nigeria through microcredit,skill acquisition,managerial skill and entrepreneurship development programme.Guildance Community Development Foundation had trained 1,310 entreptreneurs,loan 90 traders (micro credit) and collection of voluntary daily contribution from 225 as at the time of writing.
The youth group association formed in one commune of Moung Russey is waiting for the supporter to help them in building training center and support trainer for one course of three months period on food cooking to initiative group business and share their benefit to help to other groups.
To be able to start writing business plans we have to start a survey or research into options for small businesses. To do this we need a volunteer who can write a format or guidelines to set up a survey.
Tomas supplied us with some questions, for example:
- Is there a market for the goods or services?
- Is there money in the community to spend on the goods or services?
- How many people with money are there in your local market?
- Will they spend money on these goods or services or is there a great degree of self sufficiency in the market already?
- Will the new businesses provide better goods and service than already exist?
- Will some services free up time for the buyer to pursue their own interests?
- etc.
We hope to complete this task soon, so we can move on with writing business proposals to secure micro finance and other funding.
The community has been considering a profit-sharing scheme instead of using the minimum wage to pay coop workers. They have consulted with an accountant-friend who has told them it is possible.
They would like to up the wage-rate in proportion to hours worked and profit-made by the coop. For this task, we are looking for people knowledgeable in business economics to help us work out how to do this and still comply with the cooperative code.
The main objectives of this project is the fruit farm and agroforestry project. When their is harvest, we can consider fruit drying and honey making, but until then other income generation ideas are needed, as well as teaching about business, markets and economy.
In this task we are looking for ideas of small businesses that the co-operative can handle and succeed in. I have included here a booklet, that might give us some ideas to research for the project.
Many schools rely on outside donors and/or tuition fees to meet their ongoing running costs.
It is also possible for a school to make money in other ways to cover some or all of these costs e.g. by running one or more small businesses based at the school.
If you have been successful in this how did you start, what challenges did you face and how did you overcome them, what benefits have there been to the school and its students?
(1) to juveniles in detention; and
(2) to people in the community with criminal records.
This is a unique experience that allows you to share your education and experience with those that really need some guidance. Our students are engaged, enthusiastic and appreciative of the opportunity to participate in such a valuable program. The newest courses targeted to youth and formerly incarcerated people will have a great impact, and I can promise that you will gain valuable life experiences and perspective.
The Massachusetts Community Outreach Initiative (MCOI) is currently looking for male and female business advisors for teenage youth in Boston. These youth are currently enrolled in entrepreneurship classes in juvenile detention facilities, and are hoping to start their own small businesses upon their release. They have been developing business ideas and basic business plans in class, but require assistance moving forward. They have never had advisors before, and have been enthusiastically asking for them.
$475 of $500 raised.
Started raising funds on Sep 26, 2009
The Johnson Street Business Center is a group of five borrowers led by Augustine Sando, who is 56 years old and married with seven children. The children are between the ages of 8 and 31 years old. The younger ones are in school. Augustine also cares for five siblings. Augustine is a high-school graduate and a trade certificate holder.
Augustine lives and sells on Johnson Street, a business community close to downtown Monrovia, Liberia. Augustine's business is in construction wood. He buys it at wholesale prices and sells at retail. He has been running this business for five years. He believes that offering good prices and providing strong customer service have allowed him to come this far.
Augustine believes strongly in his business and wishes to improve it to a higher level. He is requesting this loan to purchase more wood for sale so as to acquire more profit. He dreams of giving his family a better education as a means of preparing them for the future.
$300 of $350 raised.
Started raising funds on Sep 29, 2009
Black Survivor Business is a group of 5 borrowers led by Bendu Jallah, 37 years old and single, with a child aged 11 years old.
Bendu was forced to leave school when she was in the 9th grade, because she got pregnant and was abandoned by her child’s father. She had no choice but to leave school to fend for herself and the child. She lives and sells goods in the Jah Tono a suburb around Monrovia, Liberia. This community was destroyed by the civil war, therefore people live in old and burnt houses.
Bendu’s business is buying dry goods like rice, candles, matches, oil, etc. and charcoal wholesale and selling them retail to the residents of Jah Tono community. She started this business 3 years ago. Bendu sells her customers good products just to maintain them. Sometimes Bendu's goods get damaged by the weather; that can sometimes discourage her, but she has to take care of her child.
Bendu needs this loan in order to to expand her business because her customers are numerous and her goods can't satisfy their needs. Bendu is hoping to become a successful businesswoman and educate her child so as to become a prominent person in society.