How to Help Start Businesses Around the World

Microloans

Oprah.com | September 22, 2009

Microloans—money you can lend to help women establish their own means of income—are powerful weapons against poverty and injustice affecting women. Find out how you can help women everywhere stand on their own.

$10: Share a Goat
A goat can produce several quarts of milk a day, which means a family will have better nutrition and a little money from the sale of surplus milk.

$10: Help Start an Afghan Tailoring Business
Supply an Afghan woman with the tools and cloth to learn tailoring, enabling her to start a home-based business and earn a living for her and her children.

$20: Flock of Chicks
The protein in just one egg is a nutritious gift for a hungry child, and you could help a hungry family with a starter flock of 10 to 50 chicks.

$25: Economic Independence in Central America
Help fund a loan and business skills training for a poor, indigenous woman in a rural area of Central America, enabling her to start a small business (e.g., sewing, artisan crafts, agriculture, baking), create financial security for her family and break the cycle of poverty.

$25: Lead a Woman to Financial Empowerment
You can provide a village savings and loan group with a lock box, ledger and other start-up materials to help put women and families on the path to financial empowerment.

$60: Plant Trees
Farm families learn to keep their small plots of land healthy and renew the soil for future generations by planting trees.

$120: Give a Goat
A dairy goat can give a ton of milk a year and produce two or three kids, growing into a herd and increasing a family's income.

$250: Help an Afghan Woman Start a Business
Your one-time donation of $250 will enable a woman in Afghanistan to start a business, such as a bakery, tailoring or carpet weaving. With a microcredit loan from our program, this woman can grow her business, generate an income and begin to build a better life for herself and her family. Invest in her today.

$5,000: Gift Ark of Animals
Get your friends, family and co-workers in on the gift of a lifetime! Fifteen pairs of animals to help families change their lives and become self-reliant using Heifer's time-tested methods of training and livestock.

Invest in a Woman's Future
You can lend as little as $25 to a woman of your choice so she can invest in her business and achieve financial independence. When the loan is repaid, you get your money back and can relend it again and again! To become a microbanker, choose from the current loans being requested by women around the world.

Printed from Oprah.com on Saturday, February 11, 2012