Monday, 22 April 2013

My Top 10 Tips to Live Below The Line


One week today the Live Below The Line challenge begins!!! 


 

And for those of you who are like me and slightly worried about whether you have the creativity and knowledge to eat adequately on just £1 a day. Or wonder how you are going to raise both awareness and funds for your chosen charity, I have compiled a list of TOP TEN TIPS to help you (and me) take on the challenge!




Friday, 19 April 2013

Rice production in Cambodia: the poor farmer’s perspective



Rice farming in Cambodia can be a tough and uncertain business. Rainfall is highly erratic, both drought and floods being regular occurrences, land is often infertile or under-nourished and investment in new farming systems and technology is minimal. 

Yet approximately 60% of the Cambodian population rely on agriculture (mainly rice production) for their livelihoods and unsurprisingly the vast majority of those are living on less than $1.25 a day. Despite government commitments to expand rice production and increase the country’s export capacity, the reality for the majority of farmers is stagnant growth and an uncertain future. Which is why, on a recent trip to Cambodia, I was keen to find out why so many of the entrepreneurs we have supported through lendwithcare.org are sticking to rice farming.

Wednesday, 10 April 2013

A woman to put 26.2 miles in perspective

Last March, I made a nervous phone call to a woman called Remzija, in rural Bosnia & Herzegovina. Last June I went to Benin to meet some inspirational entrepreneurs.
And in 2 weeks I’ll be running 26.2 miles through central London.



What do these three events have in common?  Lendwithcare.org of course!


Monday, 8 April 2013

Lendwithcare.org supports important green initiative in the Philippines!


We have added our first sustainable social enterprise loan to the lendwithcare.org website to help tricycle taxi drives to acquire cleaner engines for their tricycles.  We are supporting an initiative launched by our partner in the Philippines, SEEDFINANCE and a local company called “Clean Engines Incorporated” (CEI) to help reduce air pollution in Metropolitan Manila.  This initiative aims to encourage local tricycle taxi drivers to switch over from two-stroke petrol and diesel powered engines (highly pollutant) to environmentally-friendly liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) engines.