Blog

In our most recent video, we interview Colleen Dyble, a Five Talents Fellow who worked with our partner ECLOF in Peru from 2009 to 2011. Here, Colleen (L) is visiting a children's clothing business run by a woman named Marta and her mother Pasquella (R) in Huancavelica, Peru.

During her time in the country, Colleen managed ECLOF's non-financial services for group members -- including business training, spiritual training and micro-insurance. The loan groups are mostly comprised of women.

"Normally they hear about ECLOF from a neighbor or friend, or someone who has a stall at the market, because we tend to form our groups with people who know one another," said Colleen. "...The clients, particularly the women, are good payers. We find that you give them a small amount of money and they really are able to manage the money and pay it back because they are used to managing the money of the household."

In the following video and slideshow, we interview Colleen Dyble, who returned to the US in late 2011 after working for two years in Peru with ECLOF, a Five Talents partner. During that same time, Colleen also served as a Five Talents Fellow.

The video focuses on the "entrepreneurial culture" of Peru and how women and men set up survival businesses in order to provide for their families.

"Most of our clients already have some sort of business by the time that we meet them," said Colleen. "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."

Five Talents in Rural Peru: An Interview About Microfinance and Poverty from Five Talents on Vimeo.

As a small organization taking on a big problem – poverty – we rely not on a huge marketing department (there's only one of us), but on people like you who have a heart for the poor.

Earlier this week, we posted a list of 10 ways you can get involved with Five Talents. Today, we're adding another to the list:

Help us spread the word about our new "5 on 5" promotion.

On March 5, we will be asking friends, family, neighbors, passers-by – anyone who can – to give $5 through our Facebook Causes page.

Why through Facebook? Every time someone makes even a small donation to Five Talents on Facebook, their action is noted on their wall and on their friends' news feeds. When your mom or classmate or neighbor sees that you have just given $5 to Five Talents, he or she might say, "Hmm... what is Five Talents?" and then click over to our Facebook page.

Or this person might say, "Oh, how nice, I think I'll give $5 to their cause, too."

In other words, every time one person makes a donation through our Causes app, potentially hundreds more hear about Five Talents.

Doing good doesn't always come naturally. We often feel we're too busy, too tired, too stressed, or too broke to make a difference. But thanks to our hyper-connected world, it has never been easier to have an impact.

Do you like to network and bring people together? With just a few clicks on Facebook, you can introduce a friend who has a passion for global development to Five Talents' mission.

Do you need something to spice up your prayer life? Why not join us in praying for our clients and partners in Africa, Asia and Latin America. We can add your name to our monthly prayer e-mail list.

Do you enjoy organizing events and getting people pumped up about a worthy cause? Perhaps you can stage an online fundraiser or invite some neighbors over for coffee. (We'll be more than happy to provide a guest who can speak knowledgably about poverty and microfinance and Five Talents' mission.)

Below, you'll find 10 ways that you can help support Five Talents in its mission -- even if you're busy, tired, stressed or broke. (Perhaps you can think of some other ways to use your talents for Five Talents. If you do, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) Here they are:

Sara (L) and Eva (R), of Semillas de Bendicion (Seeds of Blessings), our partner in Bolivia, visit a market in the city of Tarija. Such markets offer low-cost stalls that micro-entrepreneurs can use to launch their small business. For an example, read the story of Filomena, who sells vegetables in Tarija.

Editor's Note: The Poverty {In Person} blog series features first-person essays written by individuals who have witnessed the reality of extreme poverty.

She hoists her small body to see through the bars of the heavy gate and I hear her calling to me, "Sir, sir! Please give me some food."

When I look up, her frantic gaze meets mine. Then she is gone.

A moment later, the girl's face, shiny with sweat, appears again. "I'm so hungry, and God will bless you," she tells me in her native language, and I don't need to translate this in my head because I've heard it a thousand times.

This is why we came here, to this little village in Ghana, West Africa, two years ago; to discern how best to help those who don't have the ability to help themselves.

Walking over to the gate, she lowers herself back to the ground and I notice she must not be more than six years old so I ask, "Where are your parents?"

"They are at home," she replies, and steps back, head low as she stares at her feet. "They are hungry too."

Hotmian's story begins with a failure. But as with many successful entrepreneurs, the failure merely gave her an opportunity to succeed.

The mother of three in Bekasi, Indonesia once owned a building materials business, along with her husband, Ramli. But when their enterprise went bankrupt in 2009, the family came to a crossroads.

Ramli decided to begin working as a driver. It was a job, after all, although it didn't provide a steady income.

Hotmian, a business woman at heart, did not want to give up her dream. But instead of starting a new business from scratch, which would cost her a lot of capital, she agreed to purchase her sister's struggling food stall business.

Food and grocery stalls are a dime a dozen in the developing world, and many never turn a profit.

But Hotmian believed she had a formula for success. With a loan from Five Talents' partner GERHATI, she expanded the food stall's stock, adding daily staple foods, such as rice, eggs, sugar, flour, shampoos, soaps and cigarettes. She also began offering catering services for people who wanted specialty foods from North Sumatra, another province in Indonesia.

Look carefully, and you will see the owner of this grocery stall in Bekasi, Indonesia. Hotmian, a mother of three, purchased the micro-business from her sister after her own building materials business went bankrupt in 2009. Grocery stalls like this one face fierce competition in urban settings, so enterprising owners must find ways to make their businesses stand out. Hotmian has done this is by selling homemade fried noodles, along with snack foods, rice, eggs, sugars, flours, shampoos, soaps and cigarettes. She also offers catering services for clients who want specialty dishes from North Sumatra, another province in Indonesia.

If you've ever traveled to a developing country to provide aid or relief, you know that life in the local community you are serving can be complicated by all sorts of factors – drought, violence, pestilence, government bureacracy.

Your goal may be to provide food, clean water, mosquito nets, or – in our case – loan capital, business training, literacy and spiritual development opportunities, but making a measurable and sustainable difference requires more than just good intentions.

You need to have, among other things, relationships in each community – as well as sensitivity to all of the forces that have put that child with a Mickey Mouse T-shirt, or that mom with a missing limb, in your path.

This is one of the reasons Five Talents partners with local organizations and dioceses in the 11 countries that host our programs. From our offices in the US and UK we can only know so much, no matter how "flat" the world has become.

"You see so many different organizations making decisions about what people need and what is the appropriate way that people and communities need to develop, and then they bring those ideas and try to implement them," said Robin Denney, an agricultural consultant who we interviewed recently about farming in South Sudan.

"They can have a certain amount of success, but there is also some arrogance in that approach. Whereas the Church and women's groups, like the Mothers' Union [a Five Talents partner], are already on the ground doing things because they are the local people. They have that vision and commitment for their community's development because they are the community leaders and the community organizers."

A farmer named Abdalla poses next to his harvest of sesame in a church-run community garden in Abara, Eastern Equatoria State, South Sudan. We recently interviewed Robin Denney, an agricultural consultant to the Episcopal Church of Sudan, about micro-entrepreneurial farming in the country. Abdalla is not a Five Talents client, but we thought we would share this photo as an example of the kind of work that the church is doing in local communities.