In August 2005 after a visit to Thailand and the region of Khao Lak where over 3,000 people died in the Asian tsunami Paul Mitchell met a group of families who had lost everything, and although they were entitled to compensation for their loss, they never received anything.
He met the spokeswomen for the groups of families and decided to set up a microcredit project, where he gave these families grants and interest free loans to get their businesses back in operation, so that they could support and feed their families again.
Due to the scale of the disaster they were given 50% of the funds in grant form to pay for capital expenditure, and 50% of the funds as an interest free loan over 12 months.
These loans were set up under the Grameen principles and the families met monthly as a group to make their repayments, but also to discuss the challenges they were having as the tourist market which they depended on had all but disappeared.
The members of the group were told at the outset that if they repaid the loans the funds would be available for further borrowing.
The loans were repaid in full and have subsequently been reissued helping them to continue to recover from the devastation of the tsunami and rebuild their shattered lives.
The cost of this project was $25,000 and as Sea Change Foundation was not set up at this stage Paul Mitchell donated the funds to set up the project.
He returned to Ireland and contacted a number of friends and Sea Change Foundation was set up in October 2005. |
