Namaste Direct is committed to alleviating poverty in rural communities of Guatemala by providing impoverished women entrepreneurs with microcredit loans along with a personal business mentor, vocational training workshops and informal business education.
Conventional wisdom has it that there are four barriers to escaping poverty (defined as less than $2 a day income per household member).
a. Lack of capital
b. Lack of education
c. Poor health conditions
d. Disasters – natural and man-made, principally wars
Namaste Direct’s response is to provide hard-working, determined women with the means to lead their families out of poverty. They measure effectiveness on a woman-by-woman basis.
The Namaste Direct package is, to the best of their knowledge, unprecedented in the field of microcredit. Their planned use of technology to assist the women is also unprecedented as it involves bringing the internet to heretofore isolated rural villages, and providing the women and their families with individual web sites to access business and market information, educational materials and communications with business associates, family and friends. It will also provide the platform for the first bottom-up communication system linking women borrowers with donors from around the world.
A significant improvement in the economic conditions and quality of life of 1 woman and her family can be attained for $500. This will mean an increase in income for the woman, which in her hands, will be invested in the education, nutrition, housing and health care of her children, as well as in growing her business! These benefits will multiply over the years.
More information about Namaste Direct can be found at their website.
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