Women's Empowerment International

Business Loans and Services for Women in Poverty

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Adelante Foundation

With only a 6th grade education – but a series of small loans – Ana Yadira Euceda has become a successful entrepreneur operating a school cafeteria in the rural area of Intibucá, Honduras.

Grameen de la Frontera

In rural Sonora, Mexico, Carmen Valenzuela Baldenegro started her new life with an $89 loan. Now the recipient of multiple loans, she is able to use profits from her well-stocked grocery store to provide an education for her two young daughters.

WE Center for STAR Women

Luchia Lokonyen farmed in her homeland of Uganda, and in Kenya, where she lived in a refugee camp for 15 years. Resettled in San Diego, Luchia used a small business loan from the WE STAR Center to pay for driving lessons. Now this mother of five has a driver's license and can sell her fresh produce at local farmers markets.

WomensTrust

In Pokuase, Ghana, Vida Zah, 56, used microfinance loans to create such a successful business providing refreshing drinks that she has been able to hire two female employees to serve her growing clientele.

Microfinance: An Effective Poverty
Reduction Strategy

Women’s Empowerment provides microfinance loans and business training to women in Mexico, Honduras, Ghana and San Diego - so they can start businesses and work their way out of poverty.

Microfinance is one of the most effective and flexible strategies in the fight against global poverty. It is sustainable and can be implemented on the massive scale necessary to respond to the urgent needs of those living on less than $2 a day.

Why microfinance?

•    Very high repayment rate
•   Funds are recycled. As loans are repaid, they are re-loaned. Reinvestment multiplies the impact of each dollar loaned.
•   Small loans help very poor households meet basic needs and protect against emergencies.
•   By lending to women, microfinance promotes gender-equity and education for children.
•   Helps families move from “everyday survival” to “planning for the future.”

Microfinance has a positive impact far beyond the individual client.

Studies show that women are much more likely than men to reinvest their earnings in their businesses and their families. As micro-businesses expand, entire communities benefit.

Jobs are created. Knowledge is shared. Civic participation increases. Children – especially girls - are educated.

And, women are recognized as valuable members of their families and communities.

Learn more ...

WE Videos

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WE International Day of Women Presentation - 2013

Video from the 102nd anniversary of the International Day of Women.Celebration March 10 at Jacobs center. Speakers included City Council member Todd Gloria and Mayor Filner.

See Video

Take a Tour of the WE STAR Center

Visit the City Heights Farmers Market, where WE STAR Center clients sell food and crafts. Also see the New Roots Garden and visit two client’s retail businesses in the area.

For details and to sign up, contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

MEET AN ENTREPRENEUR

Slowly Building a Chicken Business

Guadalupe Rodriguez has used her five loans – each one for only $27 – to slowly improve her chicken business and small farm where she grows corn. She used her first loan to build a fence to keep her chickens from getting lost or stolen. She used subsequent loans to buy fertilizer for her corn fields and feed for the chickens.

These small loans from Adelante Foundation – WE’s partner bank for the poor in Honduras – have allowed Guadalupe to buy food for her six children and keep them in school.

Guadalupe, 42, only finished first grade and does not know how to read or write, but she understands the importance of education for her children and she wants them to receive the best she can provide.

She serves as chief of her loan assembly and coordinator of her solidarity group. She holds the biweekly meetings in her house, which is a small adobe house located on the top of a hill. While she stays home to tend her chickens and the corn fields, her husband travels every day to a potato farm for work. On weekends, her husband and children help her in the fields.

Originally hesitant to take out a loan, Guadalupe has become a convert and is thankful that Adelante provides loans without requiring collateral.

Take Action

With your help, we can assist women living in poverty with small business loans and help with starting and growing their businesses. Gifts of every size make a difference.