Peru

Mother's Day is almost here, but it's not too late to express your thanks and love to the special women in your life, while also empowering mothers in Five Talents' microsavings and microcredit programs.

Here are a couple of ways that you can make Mother's Day extra-special this year:

• Submit a photograph of your mom, grandmother or aunt to be published on Five Talents' "Talented Moms" Pinterest board. Every photo is a $5 donation to Five Talents! Once we post the photo, you can share the Pinterest board with your loved one. She'll be delighted to see herself among the ranks of the world's most "Talented Moms"! To submit a photo, e-mail it to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or tweet it to @FiveTalents along with the hash tag "#TalentedMoms".
• Send your mom, grandmother, aunt or wife a Five Talents "Love Always Hopes" eCard that will empower a woman in the country of your choice -- Peru, Bolivia, Myanmar, Indonesia, Burundi or South Sudan.

 This photo taken by David Middleton for Five Talents captures a micro-entrepreneur at her stand along a street in Peru.

The interactive elements will take you to a photo essay showing how one artisan creates her colorful llama wool scarves, and to a video featuring an interview with Colleen Dyble, a Five Talents fellow who worked with our partner in Peru, ECLOF, from 2009 to 2011.

"Most of our clients already have some sort of business by the time that we meet them," says Colleen in the video. "A lot of people do what they see their neighbors doing. Some are savvy enough to understand that there's a gap in the market that needs to be filled – [like] ice cream in the summer. Others start something because it's what their mother did or their grandmother did. They just have learned the trade over the years."

If you were to travel with one of us on a program visit, we would inevitably take you to a local marketplace to meet a few of our micro-entrepreneurs. As we walked past market stands, we'd tick off the types of products being sold: bananas, potatoes, second-hand clothing, cups of tea.

Many micro-entrepreneurs sell products that have been purchased in bulk or grown on their own plot of land. Some, though, take an existing product – or a discarded one – and refashion it in some way in order to add value.

We've written about Reech, a micro-entrepreneur in Wau, South Sudan who takes old mosquito nets and turns them into rope.

We've shown you the children's sweaters that Marta sews in Peru.

During Program Director Suzanne Schultz Middleton's last trip to South Sudan, she met Adon (R), a woman in a Five Talents savings and loan group who was selling peanut paste at a market in Kuajok.

"In South Sudan, a lot of people are bringing goods in. That's how they add value -- just by transporting things. But this woman had cultivated some ground nuts, what we call peanuts, and she'd turned them into paste (peanut butter) and sold it," said Suzanne (L). "Through her own work she had added value."

The end of the year is fast approaching. But the road out of poverty is long and hard.

In order to continue meeting our commitments to micro-entrepreneurs in places like Bolivia, South Sudan and Myanmar, Five Talents needs your support.

For an example of how your generosity can change a whole community, look no further than this project in Malakal, South Sudan, where over 10,000 participants have been given what is often their first opportunity to become literate and numerate.

For stories of individual lives transformed, look no further than those of Rosma in the Philippines, Narcisa in Peru, and Roda in Sudan.

Here are five ways you can make a tax-deductible donation and help us keep these women – and tens of thousands of others – on the road out of poverty:

• Donate through our eGift Catalog. Click here to select a program/project from South Sudan, Indonesia, Peru or Myanmar. Upon completing the transaction, you will be invited to send either 5 or 10 e-cards informing loved ones that a gift has been made in their honor.
• Give through PayPal. If you are using a smart phone or tablet, you can easily donate to Five Talents by using the PayPal button on our Ways to Donate page. Or just click here. The process is seamless if you have already created a PayPal account.

Over the next three weeks, you'll have to decide on gifts for a select group of friends and family members.

Fortunately, we've got a gift idea that we think you'll love: Instead of buying them a Starbucks gift card, or a tree ornament, send your loved ones a Five Talents e-card.

Here's how it works:

• Visit our eGift Catalog and pick from among the 10 e-card options. Prices range from $25 to $50. Every e-card features beautiful photography that captures an aspect of Five Talents' work in a particular country. Your purchase will count as a donation for that particular country and program.
• At the end of your transaction, you will be prompted to enter the e-mail addresses of either 5 individuals (for every $25 e-card) or 10 individuals (for every $50 e-card). Each person will receive an e-card explaining that a gift was made in his or her honor towards Five Talents' work in, for example, savings group formation in South Sudan (see the above e-card image of the "One Nation" savings group in South Sudan).

Your e-card purchases are tax-deductible, and they are a great way to spread holiday cheer and share the joy of giving with your loved ones.

With every e-card purchase, you are contributing to the transformation of lives in some of the most under-served communities in the world.

Click here to send a set of Five Talents e-cards today!

Partners:

• Ecumenical Church Loan Fund (ECLOF), Lima, Huancavelica, Peru
• Anglican Diocese of Peru

Program Type and Services:

• Christian Microfinance Institution: “Credit-Led”

ECLOF has focused on providing credit services using group-based methodologies through two models, namely Community Banks and Solidarity Groups (see “Group Loans” below).

Group Loans: These loans are based on a group-lending model. Entrepreneurs self-organize themselves into groups with other entrepreneurs that they trust and with whom they share common business goals. Each entrepreneur is given their own loan, but the re-payment of the loan is guaranteed by the group. These loans have short re-payment cycles. The entrepreneurs can incrementally increase the size of their loans and incorporate savings into their business practices.  ‘Solidarity Groups’ have 3 to 7 members, and ‘Community Banks’ have 10 to 20 members.

Individual Loans: These loans provide working capital and fixed assets to individual entrepreneurs. The credits allow them to invest in their microenterprises and generate income that enables them to make their loan payments and improve the lives of their families and beneficiaries.

Training and resource examples:

• Business management: budgeting, marketing, skills-based training
• Leadership and personal development
• Pastoral care
• Product development
• Values training

The Community

The population of San Juan de Miraflores consists largely of people who have migrated from rural areas with very low educational levels.  Eight out of 10 heads of homes do not have a primary level of education. The lack of education prevents many people from obtaining sustainable employment and generating income to afford housing. These circumstances, along with the lack of basic services, such as water and drainage, demonstrate the necessity of a microcredit program.

The microcredit program will be developed in the district of San Juan de Miraflores (covered by ECLOF Peru’s Lima South office), which has an estimated population density of 15,310 inhabitants per square kilometer.  Of the residents, 6.3% are suffering from chronic malnutrition.  The women represent a particularly vulnerable group.  Unemployment and sub-employment affects at least 50% of the population nationally.

In the Lima South region there are other microfinance providers, as well as moneylenders charging excessive interest rates.  ECLOF distinguishes itself from the other microfinance institutions (MFIs) through the provision of ongoing training and support to clients, including support in the area of product development and diversification (such as training workshops in jewelry-making, etc.).

The region of Huancavelica, where an office was opened in 2009, is the poorest in Peru, and is underserved by MFIs and other financial service providers.  ECLOF has decided to work with financially excluded communities, and will be providing both financial and non-financial services in this region as well.

Five Talents is currently raising funds to help ECLOF open a new branch office in the town of Huancayo that will serve the surrounding rural region.

The Program

A group lending strategy is used in this program, and women entrepreneurs identified as having the lowest income levels, derived from small business activities, are given priority in membership selection for solidarity groups.  Group members receive training before loan distribution and while the loan is in effect.  Loans are disbursed in the form of “credit steps,” which begin with $300 and, as the business expands, loans increase over time.

The Ecumenical Church Loan Fund (ECLOF) of Peru is an ecumenical organization working in partnership with Christian Churches, including the Anglican Church, to support human development and self-sufficiency as vehicles for alleviating poverty.  The Diocese has chosen the area in which the loan program will operate and will assist in identifying loan recipients and providing spiritual development.

The Need

In FY2012, the offices in Lima and Huancavelica reached a total of 2,604 clients. In FY2013, Five Talents hopes to raise enough additional funds to open a new branch office south of Huancavelica in Huancayo.

The program will also offer clients business advice and management, pastoral care training, and capacity-building in leadership and self-esteem for women.

We'd appreciate your continued prayers for this transformative program. Please help us expand our work in Peru either by making a one-time donation or by signing up to "Walk with Us" as a recurring donor. A monthly gift of $10 will transform up to five lives.

Are you on Facebook? Become an online advocate for Five Talents! Our online "flash drive" has everything you need to promote the work and mission of Five Talents.

Updated December 2012

Earlier this year, during a visit to rural Peru, Five Talents Program Director Suzanne Schultz Middleton and her husband David spent a few minutes with two women who make scarves out of llama wool in Chinchero.

Although the two women pictured in the photo essay below are not members of a Five Talents/ECLOF loan group, they gave David Middleton permission to take photos during the different stages of their work – starting from the point where they color white llama wool with a red substance that is actually the blood of a beetle.

What follows is a series of photographs by David Middleton that capture the creativity and skill of two entrepreneurial artisans in rural Peru.

One of the artisans with a spool of white llama wool.

This holiday season, make a gift that will transform the lives of women and men in places like South Sudan, Myanmar, Indonesia and Peru.

With the Five Talents E-Gift Catalog you can invest in a program of your choice, such as savings group formation in South Sudan, or business training in Myanmar. You can then send your friends and family an exclusive e-card that reflects your donation!

Purchases from the Five Talents E-Gift Catalog are tax-deductible and come with an e-card that you can e-mail to as many as 10 loved ones.

Let's say you planned to make a donation to Five Talents for Thanksgiving. If you make your gift through the E-Gift Catalog, you can choose the program you want to support – for example, our savings-led program in South Sudan.