Ecuador: Microfinance and Women Entrepreneurs

‘No tengo con quien dejar los niños’

Mariana Robalino, an entrepreneur from Ecuador
© CARE

Looking through the types of business supported by lendwithcare in Ecuador, it is notable that many women manage shops, raise poultry or provide sewing or tailoring services – typically, activities that are undertaken from home. When during a recent visit to South America I asked women entrepreneurs why they favoured such enterprises, invariably the response was ‘No tengo con quien dejar los niños’ or ‘I have to look after the children’. Working from home enables women to earn an income while looking after young children – they can close the business while they drop off and pick up their children from school or attend to other urgent tasks such as taking an ill child to the doctor.

Why I Lend: Compassion

Lendwithcare lender, Ia Uaro, tells us why she lends

 

 

© CARE

“I shall pass this way but once

therefore

any good that I can do,

or any kindness that I can show,

let me do it now!

for I shall not pass this way again.”

A version of that was written by a thirteenth-century Courtenay ancestor, Edward, Earl of Devon. Many people love this poem. I don’t know what they do with their love, but my protagonist says love is more than just a feeling. Love is a drive, a force to act! Many hearts are moved when they see sufferings.

A Day In The Life Of .... A Liaison Officer from Cambodia

Chantra Roeurn works for lendwithcare's microfinance partner in Cambodia, the Cambodian Community Savings Federation (CCSF), and has taken time out of his busy schedule to tell us a little about his work & life 

Chantra Roeurn © CARE

Why I Lend: To help out business owners from across the globe

Lendwithcare lender, Ffion Davies, founder of PR company Espressivo Creative, tells us why she lends …

Gilda Valerio, an entrepreneur from the Philippines supported by Espressivo Creative

© CARE

Being an entrepreneur can be extremely rewarding, but also, ridiculously lonely at times. When a fellow entrepreneur creates an alliance with another, there’s a new bond being created, an alliance, if you will, and it’s rather quite special.

Why I Lend: to help secure a happier future

Lendwithcare lender, Daniel Openshaw, tells us why he lends ...

Srebrenica Memorial

© CARE/Jon Spaull

I started to lend with care on the day that Ratko Mladic was put on trial in The Hague for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Bosnian war, 1992-95. Mladic's alleged atrocities rank amongst the worst in living memory; certainly they typify for most people the pointless horrors and bloodshed of war. He became known as the 'Butcher of Bosnia' by the media who love a nickname no matter how much it tends to trivialise the nature of heinous acts, but there was nothing trivial about Mladic's repeated slaughtering and raping under the guise of Serb nationalism. His most infamous attack was on Srebrenica, a Bosniak town under supposed UN protection in 1995 where he rounded up Bosniak boys and men and over five days his forces shot dead more than 7,500 before burying them in mass graves.

Could Mobile Banking be the innovative answer to the microfinance conundrum?

  

VSLA © CARE/Josh Estey

What do mobile phones and lendwithcare have in common?

The numbers are not conclusive but general web-consensus puts worldwide mobile phone usage at the end of 2011 at 5.6 billion. A number driven up significantly by developing giants China (>1bn) and India (>900m) but numbers are also growing in smaller developing countries like the Philippines (86m), Ecuador (15.9m) and Benin (1.6m). In fact, a Guardian piece found that two thirds of the mobile phones in use in 2009 were being used by people from developing countries.

More than Microfinance: providing training & support services

Entrepreneur: Tifa Efendic

© CARE/Jon Spaull

All microfinance is not the same

Rather, there is huge diversity in the types of microfinance institutions (MFIs) that provide financial services for low-income people. As Larry Reed writes  “… by 2011, more than 3,600 institutions reported providing loans to 205 million people. These institutions ranged from small, village-based savings and loan groups in rural West Africa to banks in Latin America valued at more than a billion dollars”. Since MFIs have differing methodologies and objectives, the impact of microfinance will also vary according to how financial services are provided and whether or not clients receive other non-financial services and support.