Archive for the ‘Microcredit’ Category

We at Rose Sri Lanka would like to take an opportunity to share with you some stories of the successes that small business owners have had this year as a result of microcredit loans from Rose Charities.

Our first success story comes from the village Thumbankerni, where Suthakaran Ajantha, a local grocer, has set up a small shop to sell fresh produce and household goods. Intially, Ajantha and her husband invested 20,000Rs of their own savings to pay for shop space and stock. This provided a modest income of 1,500Rs per week, which, between keeping the shelves stocked and putting food on the family’s table, was simply not enough. Ajantha decided to apply to Rose Charities for a microcredit loan. From Rose, she received two loan installments; a first one of 25,000Rs and later a second loan of 50,000Rs.. With her loans, Ajantha and her husband have been able to expand their shop space and fill the shelves with a wide range of merchandise. In addition, they have now gained access to wholesale goods from the Rose Charities Community Shop. Previously, Ajantha had to undertake long bus trips to Kalmunai or Batticaloa in order to buy stock at wholesale prices. This kept her away from the shop and away from her husband and children for hours each week. Now she can keep her store well-stocked from right in her own community at even cheaper prices than the big Batticaloa wholesalers. Income quickly rose from 1,500Rs to 5,000Rs per week and has remained there. This is great news for the family as it allows them enough keep the shop running, repay their loans on time, and perhaps most importantly, it allows Ajantha to spend time working and playing with her three school-aged children.

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There are more stories to come, so stay tuned!

Social Enterprise Seminar 2012.

Held at the Creekside Community Centre Vancouver in Fall 2012, the seminar attracted a group of Rose Charities enthusiasts and supporters with wide interests and areas of involvement.  Rose Charities organizers believe very much in sustainability and local support and involvement for all projects and one way to achieve this is to incorporate social enterprise components wherever possible.

The meeting spanned initiatives both at the donor end as well as the field project end, as well as those which bridged both.  Moderated by Rose International Members, Linda Roberts and Will Grut, the keynote speaker was Margaret Mason of Bull Housser who outlined some of the basic and most important aspects of social enterprise projects.

From the Vancouver end, the ‘Lot To Give‘ and ‘Give Group‘ programs were presented by Laura Benson and Kris Roberts respectively  In principle these are based around the concept of supply of a service either online or through other sources or retail outlet with significant focus on charitable donation.  With Give Group this is through real-estate transactions.

From the field, projects presented included Rose Vietnams paper flower making at Than Thien Village, a centuries old historic art which Rose Vietnam has been helping to revive.  Beekeeping in coordination with the Bee World Organization in Zambia and Cambodia,  brickmaking in Uganda with Dr Andrew Macnabs Brighter Smiles group, and volunteer tourism and elective student field experience trips in Cambodia.  Lawrence Keenan, continually one of the main project instigators and supports in Sri Lanka, outlined the current social enterprise initiatives there, including the amazing  Rose Sri Lanka microcredit program and other initiatives embracing health and food distribution.

Janine Vertone’s initiative (Ukama Arts) of import and sale of Zimbabwe sculptures , with much of the proceeds being returned for Zimbabwe school support is a project which links both the field and the donor end.  The honey projects mentioned above also fit into this category as the Honey Bee Centre in Surrey will, if possible, purchase and import any honey not sold locally through its international projects.  Finally Malambo Grassroots in Zambia also has several womens groups who produce handicrafts, some of which are sold in Vancouver

Following presentations were discussions on some of the challenges the projects faced, how they were planned and established as well as future projections.  Interchange of ideas was beneficial and interesting and groups came away with new ideas for further development of plans for their areas.

Refreshments were kindly supplied by some of the participants (thank you Linda Roberts) and there was general agreement that the seminar was both beneficial and interesting, and should be repeated in 2013.

This is the story of two women.  One woman uses a piece of clean string and a clean razor blade.   With  it she saves,  scores, hundreds, probably thousands of lives. The people she saves are mothers and their babies. The mothers have given birth where there is no medical assistance.  Lack of hygiene, lack of knowledge, even some traditional practices in severing the umbilical cord provide the fertile conditions for infection. Sometimes mud or even cow dung are used to apply to the raw ends of the cord.  The clean string is used simply to tie the cord and the sterile blade to cut it. .

Now the woman makes up cheap kits. They simply contain instructions, soap, sterile string and blade and some.  All it takes to save two lives is a clean pad, soap, razor blade, a length of string and a set of illustrated instructions.  Each kit will save 2 lives.  The kits are quietly  distributed to where they are needed thoughout the world.

The other woman who follows the same path. She travels to rural Central America with a small team to carry the same simple message and taking also, birthing kits with her.   Year after year she returns and year after year she finds more women who, having seen the results of what she has been teaching others, wish to learn. Her course lasts 4 days. The woman  educates child birth attendants to wash their hands. Thousands of women die every year because of not doing this. She educates them in the simple things that will save.

Both women know that 820,000 women die because of  childbirth every year; 99% of them are in developing countries.  They know that, worldwide, a woman dies in childbirth every 40 seconds.  They know that three quarters of the 4 million babies who die every year could be saved by simple interventions. They know that so many women simply have no access to safe medical facilities (in Bangladesh for example only 9% of births take place in clinics or hospitals)   They know the grief and suffering of so many families through these events.

So quietly, simply, they have rolled up sleeves and helped.  No full spread media campaigns, no double-space TV ads, no fleets of white SUV’s, no first-class  ’celebrity spokesperson’ visits. They just do it themselves, unsung heroes, quietly saving lives…

1)   http://wordbirthaid.org
2)   http://safemotherhoodproject.org

The ‘BC Place’ Sadium formed an impressive backdrop to the meetin

The 2nd Rose Charities Canada Project Presentation Forum held at the Creekside ‘Olympic Village’ Community Centre in Vancouver attracted around 80 persons and represented a spectrum from those with close Rose involvment to those just curious to know more about Rose projects. Food was ‘pot-luck’ which resulted in a groaning table of delicious food and an drinks were available at a small donation bar.

Topics demonstrated the wide range of Rose Charities Canada involvment areas, both geographical as well as sectorial. Sadly, time, and the quantity of projects permitted only short 5 minute presentations, but this tight schedule also allowed a mid period for refreshments and all-important networking .

Rachel Greene (Rose Charities NY) presents on Social Networking

Special guests were Rachel Greene and Clare Seekins of Rose Charities USA, who presented the work of Rose Charities NY with their digital art program for reservation youth in Idaho, as well as a talk on social media. 

The evening was deemed interesing and enjoyable by all.

Presentations consisted of ..

• Rose Sri Lanka (Mike Ramanaden) http://rosesrilanka.info

Rose Charities Canada’s Louise Aaronson and Pricilla Yogendran take refreshments between presentation