Support in Haiti :: Seachange Foundation

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support in haiti

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>	Muhammad Yunus wins Nobel Peace Prize for his inspirational work with ‘microcredit’
>	World leaders in ‘Microcredit’ www.grameenfoundation.org www.grameen-info.org www.fonkoze.org www.brac.net www.microcreditsummit.org
>	Projects currently being funded by Sea Change
>	What is Microcredit?
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>	How you can help?

Support in Haiti

Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere and suffers from a history of political instability, poor health care and high levels of illiteracy and unemployment.

Approximately 15 percent of the estimated demand for microfinance is currently being met, where over 5.4 million people [65 percent] live below the national poverty line.

Here Sea Change partners with Fonkoze, Haiti’s Alternative Bank for the Organised Poor, and is the countries largest microfinance institution. It offers a full range of financial and non-financial services to the poor, primarily the rural poor, through its 32 branches throughout the country. Its mission is to build an economic foundation for democracy.

Founded in 1994,Fonkoze is owned an operated by its members. Its innovative remittance program that allows Haitians living abroad to safely, affordably and conveniently send money home was honoured by CGAP’s Pro-Poor Innovation Award in 2003.

Fonkoze currently has almost 110,000 depositors and more than 45,000 active borrowers. The services offered to the poor by Fonkoze include group and individual loans that are used to start or expand a small business, savings products, money transfer services, and literacy and business skills training.

In 2007 Sea Change foundation has financed the opening of a new branch and disbursed $50,000.This is the start of our support for the Fonkoze 5 year objectives to:

Increase the number of borrowers from 45,000 to 200,000
Increase savings account holders from 110,000 to 400,000
Move 5,000 extremely poor client families into mainstream microfinance programs and out of extreme poverty.
Significantly increase rural access to financial services by opening 30 new branches, each of which achieves sustainability within 12 to 24 months.

Also in 2007 Sea Change provided $75,000 to provide capital investment to set up and bring FonkoSel to sustainability within 12 to 18 months.

Fonkosel is based on the highly successful Grameen Village Phone program in Bangladesh and its objective to give access to modern communications to those who can least afford it in rural Haiti. About 6 million people.

Village phone provides microfinance clients with cell phones and materials to start a payphone business. Microfinance clients collect fees for calls made on the phone.

For the first time many of the rural poor in Haiti will have direct, affordable access to family and friends, near and far in a land where distances are short, but travel is expensive and very difficult.

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