Empowering Individuals in the Global Community Through Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs

Whole Planet Foundation supports entrepreneurs in our global communities by partnering with local microfinance institutions that offer small business loans to the very poor.

Veronica, Microcredit Client of Microloan Foundation (Malawi)

Whole Planet Foundation partners with Microloan Foundation in Malawi where Whole Foods Market sources Whole Trade Guarantee sugar.

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Whole Planet Foundation partners with Microloan Foundation in Malawi where Whole Foods Market sources Whole Trade Guarantee sugar. With $450,000 support from Whole Planet, Microloan Foundation will be able to reach 4,500 new clients over the next 3 years.

It is estimated that just 8% of Malawians connected to a national grid and even that becoming increasingly unreliable of late so solar energy is extremely important. Imagine being totally constrained by nature for the ability to read or to undertake certain critical tasks, just because it is after 6pm? This is the reality for many women and their families in Africa, with their only lighting up until now being from dangerous and expensive kerosene lamps and candles. Enter clean, safe and reliable solar energy. MicroLoan trains and mentors women so they can successfully market and service solar energy products (specifically designed for remote rural settings), as well as manage the stock effectively. Veronica, pictured, set up her solar business as her tea shop was failing to generate sufficient income. She is making a huge amount of additional money by renting out fully charged LED lamps each evening to members of the public and charging people’s mobile phones. Veronica has pre-orders for this service for the next month and a local school already wants to purchase her entire next stock of solar packs. Business for her is certainly booming. Photo courtesy of MicroLoan Foundation.

Lourdes, Microcredit Client of Fundacion Paraguaya (Paraguay)

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Lourdes is a young tradeswoman who runs her own business, a small general store. Lourdes is the reflection of many of the women in Paraguay who wiped extreme poverty off

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Lourdes is a young tradeswoman who runs her own business, a small general store.  She is 25 years old and lives in Mariano Roque Alonso, a district known for the largest agriculture and industry fair in Paraguay.

Lourdes is the reflection of many of the women in Paraguay who wiped extreme poverty off, and found in the “Committees of Women Entrepreneurs” (Fundacion Paraguaya’s village banking program) the best way to improve their income and life style.

“When I first started, my store had a plain scale with different metal weights, a couple of shelves, very few merchandise and an old fridge.  Now I have a digital scale, a 400 litter freezer, two big fridges and a bigger quantity of merchandise”, the young entrepreneur says with profound satisfaction.
 
The Fundacion Paraguaya, a local Paraguayan NGO, has more than 2,000 Committees of Women Entrepreneurs (village banking groups) across the country, comprising nearly 30,000 women whose average loans are of $80.

Lourdes, as the other members of the committee, gets microloans for investing in her small business, and training sessions in financial management, leadership, self-management and other skills.

“My first loan was of US$40, which I invested in merchandise for my store.  I was so excited! It was the first time in my life I got access to credit.  Before that, I always wanted to ask for a loan from a financial institution to fulfill my dream of owning a store”, Lourdes remembers.

Ramirez has all her goals clear in her head, she dreams with something new and saves up to get it.
“Now that I got my dream of having my own little business, I dream with new things.  My dream now is to have a bigger store with more merchandise and a small restaurant, where I could sell fast food and drinks.  I’m thinking about dismantling this unstable wood construction, buy some new tables, get cable TV and make hamburgers and other kinds of fast food that you can’t get in my neighborhood.”
“When I close my eyes I see my own house made of hard material, my cooler and a TV upstairs in a pedestal support.  I also see my restaurant filled with people sitting around the table and I see myself serving them.  Since I was young I always dreamed of having my own restaurant.  I’m surrounded by people who support me to fulfill this dream.”

For Lourdes, the key is to save money to fulfill her dreams and to help people who might need it.  Besides, she has developed her own savings method through the years so that she can reach her goals.
“I always save with a goal in mind.  I’ve been saving the earnings from my sales for 6 months now, in a US$3 dollar-a-day piggy bank, for my son’s birthday.  And I keep a daily record in my store so I know how much money I need to have in the register at the end of every day”, she explains. “I also plan on buying a freezer to cool drinks as a goal.  And I’m going to make it, just as I could buy and pay for my other freezer simply with my daily ice selling profit. While today Lourdes enjoys her best income level so far and a significantly improved life style, it wasn’t always like this.

Her father died when she was only 12 years old.  Soon after that she decided, as many young women in the rural areas, to head out for the capital city to work as a housemaid.

She got pregnant at age 19 and with that she took on a whole new set of responsibilities. “I realized I was pregnant when I was in my fourth month.  I almost died.  I got so depressed because I was going to be a single mom.”

However, as she explains, her situation began to change when she found the Committee of Entrepreneurial Women.  This gave her a support system and access to credit to invest in her own business, the small general store, which after three years keeps on growing and giving her hope for a better future.


Thusitha, Microcredit Client of BRAC (Sri Lanka)

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Thusitha is a brilliant, talented woman from Sri Lanka. She’s a tailor, designer, painter, etc. It is amazing how skilled she is. She is popular in her community for making wedding dresses. BRAC Sri Lanka currently serves 100% women clients and Whole Planet Foundation will provide them with a $500,000 grant over the next 3 years, with a goal of reaching 2,644 new borrowers.


Euceria, A Microcredit Client of Adelante Foundation (Honduras)

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Euceria Bernandez runs a bread-making business in the Caribbean coastal village of Guadalupe, Honduras. She is a client of Fundación Adelante, a Whole Planet Foundation partner that offers small loans to poor working women so that they can invest in their own businesses. Euceria makes pan de coco (coconut bread) and pan dulce (sweet bread), both staples of the regional diet. She has invested her first loan of 1,500 Lempiras ($79) in ingredients for cooking including flour, lard and salt. Euceria prepares the dough in her kitchen and cooks the bread over a fire pit outside of her home, using recipes and techniques she learned from her mother who was also a bread-maker. She puts the warm rolls in a basket and walks through the streets of her community, selling her bread to hungry neighbors. As her business grows, Euceria plans to expand her small kitchen so that she will have more space for cooking. While working, she also cares for her four grandchildren while their mother works in a nearby village. The ability to work from home is an advantage of microcredit, allowing women to earn an income while caring for young children. The importance of Euceria’s buusiness to the livelihood of her family is evidenced in her simple statement, “La ganancia es el pan de cada día,”—“My salary is our daily bread.”

Kalpana, Microcredit Client of Mery Corps (Nepal)

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Microcredit client Kalpana, a seasonal vegetable farmer from Bhirgaun, Dhankuta in Nepal, sells her vegetables in the local market. Whole Planet Foundation partners with Nirdhan Utthan Bank and Mercy Corps in Nepal where Whole Foods Market sources tea. Our goal in supporting this community with a $312,000 grant is to reach 10,000 farmers like Kalpana who do not have access to traditional financial systems.


Juana, Microcredit Client of Banco Adopem (Dominican Republic)

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Many Whole Foods Market team members are from the Dominican Republic, and requested us to fund a microlending project there. Whole Planet Foundation is partnering with ADOPEM in the Dominican Republic where Whole Foods Market sources cacao. Microcredit client Juana runs a "colmado", a corner store and has taken a loan of DRP20,000 ($555). She likes the ADOPEM program because of the credit terms which are less expensive than another organization she has borrowed from, but feels she has outgrown the program and contemplates not returning. 

Felicienne, Microcredit client of One Acre Fund (Rwanda)

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Felicienne is a farmer who grows climbing beans with the help of One Acre Fund in Rwanda. The name of her farmer group is Twishyirehamwe, which means "Let's be together" in Kinyarwanda. One Acre Fund serves subsistence farmers, who make up 75 percent of the world’s poor. It provides farmers with a “market bundle” of services—including formation of the group, seed and fertilizer, and education—and are repaid for those services. In 2011 One Acre Fund served over 70,000 farm families impacting over 350,000 people living in those families. Founded only five years ago, One Acre Fund has been recognized by prestigious early-stage grantmakers such as the Echoing Green, Draper Richards and Skoll Foundations. In 2010 and 2011, One Acre Fund won the FT/IFC Sustainable Finance Award for Achievement in Basic Needs Financing.


Yim, Microcredit Client of Chamroeun (Cambodia)

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YIM is a microcredit client of Chamroeun in the Phnom Penh region of Cambodia. She invested her loan and now sells vegetables in the local market.

Chamroeun has 18,544 active clients and a repayment rate of 99%. Whole Planet Foundation hopes to reach 6,042 new clients over the next 3 years with a $500,000 interest free loan.


Mariana, Microcredit Client of Grameen America (United States)

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Whole Planet Foundation partners with Grameen America in New York, Omaha and Indianapolis where WFM sources apples, meats and dairy and local produce, respecitvely. Whole Planet Foundation's goal is to grow with Grameen America as they expand their projects in the U.S., with future projects including Detroit, San Francisco, Atlanta, Boston and Washington, D.C. To learn more about Grameen America and their work, visit their website and check out the film To Catch A Dollar.

Beatrice, a Mentor for a BRAC Adolescent Club (Uganda)

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Beatrice, pictured here with her mother, is a mentor for a BRAC Uganda adolescent program in her community. BRAC Uganda operates 690 adolescent clubs in Uganda with more than 20,000 girls enrolled in the program. She recently started a tailoring shop next to her mother's grocery store with the help of a youth finance loan from BRAC.

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Mentor

Kiymet, Microcredit Client of TGMP (Turkey)

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Kiymet joined Turkish Grameen Microcredit Program (TGMP) on November 6, 2008. The date of her first loan was November 13, 2008 in the amount of 700,000 TL ($USD). She has repaid that and taken out a second loan in the amount of 1.000,000 TL ($USD) and is using it for sheep raising. Whole Planet Foundation partners with TGMP in Turkey where Whole Foods Market sources spices including cumin and bay leaves. Our goal in supporting this community with a grant of $383,175 is to start a new microlending branch to reach 1,510 clients, 100% women.  Photo courtesy of Diane Bondareff.

Wilman, Microcredit Client of Fodemi (Ecuador)

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William is a young microcredit client in Ecuador who is building his business and improving his life with the help of microloans. He even helps build his community by making and selling the bricks that are used to construct many local houses.

Whole Planet Foundation partners with FODEMI in the Otavalo and Latacunga regions of Ecuador where Whole Foods Market sources Whole Trade Guarantee Flowers. With a $300,000 interest free loan, the foundtaion hopes to reach 1,000 new clients over 2 years. Photo courtesy of Megan Bond Hinrichsen.


Itha, Microcredit Client of Komida (Indonesia)

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Itah lives with her spouse and son in the neighborhood in Banda Ache on the island of Sumatra, Indonesia.  Just around the corner live her mother Saudah, and her aunt Siti Atah as well as her other three brothers and sisters and their families. The three women have come together to expand the family business; selling “Karah” a traditional cookie of the Ache province - a very popular dessert food among youth and children.

Itah was the first in her immediate family to attend University and upon graduating with a degree in Administration began working as a secretary at a popular newspaper agency.  Itah’s mother Saudah, like her mother, had no formal education. What she did have was a simple family recipe for “Karah”, a fried cookie of sort, with its main ingredients including rice, sugar, oil and spices. After getting married and having their first child, Itah begin pondering how she could start something on her own in order to gain greater flexibility in her demanding daily schedule. Itah needed more time to maintain her newly established family; she wanted to set her own agenda and start her own business. Itah decided to quit her job as a secretary and join her mother and her aunt with the “Karah” business. According to Itah, this was not looked upon as a step back, but as a step forward as Itaha’s plan was to develop and expand the family business.  

In 2009, after hearing about microcredit and the opportunity to access financial services in her village, she convinced her mother and aunt to join her in applying for a loan.  All three women joined microfinance groups within their neighborhood and received first time loans of IDR 2,000,000 (USD ~$230) . The capital went directly to purchasing ingredients in bulk at a lower cost and packaging materials in order to extend the outreach of their product. Without any problem, Itah was able to pay back her first loan. Itah, as well as her mother and her aunt have now taken out their third loan of IDR 3,000,000(USD ~$350). Utilizing Itah’s administration education and her natural entrepreneur spirit, with the extra capital investment in the business, earning and profit continue to increase dramatically. 

Before the access to capital, maximum output was around 100 cookies (sold at IDR 1,000) per day.  Within three years they have nearly doubled that to 200 cookies sold per day. Not only is Itah making more money than she was as a secretary but now she has more time to spend with her family. Apart from this, Itah also gained social recognition in her neighborhood. She was selected as the center president of Center #41, and according to her “is responsible for protecting the program and supporting her fellow entrepreneurs when needed to ensure the continued success of her Center”. Itah has a strong zeal to expand the business further.  Her next plan is to design a personal trademark for the family recipe and begin to distribute the product wholesale in order to cut out the middle man; lowing costs and increasing profit.


Abebecha, A Microcredit Client of OCSSCO (Ethiopia)

Abebecha

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Business: Animal fattening

Abebecha uses her loan funds to purchase young cows (one at a time) which she raises to maturity and sells at a profit.  This activity is somewhat unique to this area of Ethiopia and differs from typical livestock raising in that the cow actually lives in the house with the family while it grows rather than having a separate pen or roaming in a field.
Abebecha is in a solidarity group called Derartu which means flower in the local language.


Regina, Microcredit Client of Grameen Ghana (Ghana)

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Regina, a client of Grameen Ghana Cooking plantains for her specialty- Red Red Her business has expanded through access to capital to invest in food to cook. Her Red Red business uses a lot of cooked plantains Red Red is blackeyed peas and tomatoes served with plantains

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Business: Prepared Food
Including Red Red 
"My name is Regina. I am a member of the “Wuni Songmi ti” credit group located in Zogbeli, a suburb of Tamale in Northern Ghana. I started the “red red” business 10 years ago with an initial amount of GHC 50.00 which I obtained from my husband. I could only buy 3 bunches of plantain and make an average sale of GHC 10 ($6.60) a day. The profit in the business was so small (GHC 2 or $1.32) that it couldn’t sustain my family. I could only use the money to buy food for my children.
There were so many challenges to the growth of my business. I couldn’t buy plenty plantain from the market women because my capital was very small. Also, since the plantain came only occasionally, I always finished selling the few that I could buy and kept waiting until the market women returned from the South with fresh plantain. This affected the growth of my business and the profit I made. This situation continued until I met Grameen Ghana last year.
I took an initial loan of $100. After paying on time, I requested for $300 in the second cycle. With the loan and business education provided by Grameen Ghana, my daily sales have increased and the profit from my “red red” business has also increased.
With increased capital, I have added a new product called plantain chips. This is also made from plantain but unlike “red red” the chips are fried dry and can be stored for long periods. I supply these chips to shops and offices all over the Tamale metropolis.

The support received from Grameen Ghana under WPF support has transformed my live in various aspects. I am now highly respected by my husband because I contribute to the family budget. I am now able to pay the school fees and hospital bills of my children as well as buy clothing for myself and my children. I no longer rent equipment for my business as I have been able to buy all the necessary equipment

While thanking you so much for your support, I want to encourage you to continue to expand your support to help change the lives of many other poor women in my area. I also want to say that the change you have brought into my life will be even greater when you increase my loan size to enable me increase my business to meet the growing customer needs."


Microcredit Client of Thailand (Thailand)

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Microcredit client who makes noodles every day The orchid produces purple noodles, the white ones are natural, and the yellow ones are dyed with a natural plant First, you make the dough out of ground up rice and water, and once it's the right consistency, it is pressed through a mold into boiling water The two women preparing the dough also make the noodles. They are adding water to the rice flour mixture A metallic container is used to press the dough through punctured holes in the bottom to shape the noodles A sample of how the dish is served - Eggplant Curry

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Whole Planet Foundation provides funding to Small Enterprise Development in the Surin region of northeastern Thailand where Whole Foods Market sources rice through Alter Eco. We had the pleasure of meeting and cooking noodles with this client, whose noodles would go perfectly with Microcredit client inspired Green Curry Chicken with Rice Noodles

Yvesrose, a Microcredit Client of Fonkoze (Haiti)

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Yvesrose has a grocery business and is the head of her borrower group. She says microcredit works because of 2 rocks, the credit officer (on the left) and the center chief (her). Her loan enabled her to restore her grocery business (on left) which was wiped out by the hurricane of 2008. To expand on her success she teaches friends the grocery business so that they can mind the store for her. Yvesrose is proud of her successful grocery business which has helped her to start another business selling sell goat meat.

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Business: Grocery and Butcher's Shop


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Nelson Mandela

Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity; it is an act of justice.

Muhammad Yunus

The poor themselves can create a poverty free world.

Ingrid Munro, Director of Jamii Bora, a Whole Planet Foundation partner in Kenya

One cannot lift a person out of poverty. There is no country in the world that has raised itself out of poverty through charity. What we offer to Jamii Bora members is access to a ladder that they can climb up to take themselves out of poverty. But the climbing they must do themselves.

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