This past month we eagerly started a micro-finance program empowering two key families to implement their innovative entrepreneurial idea! We have been waiting with great anticipation to launch this micro-finance program offering loans to members in the community with the most innovative and problem solving ideas! After reviewing several ideas, we are starting to pilot with two main endeavors:
1) LOCAL GROCERY STORE - For the first time ever, community members will have access to refrigerated goods! Up till this point, people have to travel on foot and by car to the nearest grocery store - about an hour's journey (one way). By the time they would return, their refrigerated goods (cheese, milk, etc.) would melt. We had lunch with the Remnant and experienced this first hand. This project has been in the making for over a year now and is near and dear to many in the community's heart. Every single family in the village will be able to benefit from such a grocery store and it will provide as a great source of income for the family owning the idea!
2) DONKEY + CART = WORK - Some of the poorest in this community collect tons of garbage by hand and on their backs. Many cannot afford to purchase a donkey and cart to work. The entire load of collecting garbage has been on the backs of children such as these, literally "breaking their back" and slowing down their physical ability to collect the only thing they make a living off of - recyclables.
Our micro- finance program provides a loan to some of the poorest families to purchase donkeys and carts to increase their efficiency in collecting recyclables while minimizing the pain of collecting the entire city's recyclables on their backs.
All our micro-finance programs start as IDEAS from community members - it starts with the Remnant and it gets recycled back to the Remnant! Micro-finance programs are not a new phenomenon, but we believe our program is unique because we are "recycling" initial micro-finance loans back into the community, enabling others in the community to fund and actualize their income generating ideas! Once the loans are paid off, the money will be "recycled" to invest in another Remnant Idea, providing alternate sources of income, ONE FAMILY AT A TIME!
The power of an idea is endless..and we are excited to see the results and impact of those ideas on the Remnant.