Women Vision International:
Women Helping Women
By: Jennifer Conkling

The voices of the women in the business meeting were joyful and exuberant. Ten women in a small village in Ghana, West Africa started their own soap-making business with the help of Women Vision International. These women asked who had provided the funding for them to start a business and wondered why they care about women a world away. It is simple; the American women are just like them. They are mothers who want to provide for their children, they are business women who understand the difficulties and rewards of starting and running your own business, and they understand that a threat to the economic and social independence of any woman anywhere is a threat to women everywhere.

Women Vision International (WVI) is dedicated to improving the lives of women and girls by empowering women to become economically self-sufficient. Since 1993, WVI has been providing small business loans to women in impoverished countries. WVI supporters have provided more than $3.3 million in business loan funds and over 32,000 loans to women in the Dominican Republic, Colombia, South America, Zimbabwe and Ghana. WVI partners with grassroots organizations onsite to provide women with the training and support they need to create successful businesses, develop leadership and self-esteem. Women Vision has seen firsthand that providing a business loan to a woman not only gives her a chance to improve her own life and that of her children, but it can also stabilize her entire village.

Women are less likely to invest the bulk of their profits in the business itself. Instead, they invest their profits in their children and families. Entire communities benefit when women put money back into housing, nutrition, and their children’s schooling. Grameen Bank, the world’s first micro-finance institution, currently gives 94% of its loans to women. The reason for this, according to Grameen Bank President Md. Yunus is that “Women have plans for themselves, for their children, about their home, the meals. They have a vision. A man wants to enjoy himself.”

Through the support of WVI, a woman in Ghana can start her own business with only $180. Women in the U.S. spend that much on a watch or handbag, but that is all she needs to get the materials, training, and support that it takes to start generating her own income. For the first time in her life, she will be able to send her children to school and pay for medical care.

One woman in WVI’s Zimbabwe program, Felicitas Mukoka, is very ambitious. When she first learned of the WVI, she had one business, selling used clothes. She had wanted to borrow money to further her business, but had not been able to get a loan. With her first loan from WVI (of only $57 US), she launched another business selling kindling and fuel oil. She quickly paid off that loan and received her second loan of $228 US. Felicitas opened a shop and added a room to her house, which she rents out to get additional income. She also knits baby outfits, crochets doilies, and tends a vegetable garden to increase her revenue.

“You can see how the loans have changed my life,” she says. “No more do I have to borrow from my neighbors. I used to cry about how to feed my family. But now that’s a thing of the past. If people could develop wings because of joy, I would be flying right now.” Felicitas hopes to provide an education for her oldest daughter. “I want her to have a better chance,” she says. “Life is too hard here.”

Women Vision International provides a concrete way for you to impact the lives of women and children worldwide. We invite you to join us and reach across the miles to provide new opportunities to women who live in poverty. You can donate your time, skills, money, or resources and make a life-changing difference their lives. This is your chance to become part of an international network of “women helping women.” With education and support, we can transform our own lives and ultimately change the world.

For more information on how you can contribute to the continued success of Women Vision International, please contact us at wviinfo@womenvision.org, call Jennifer Conkling at 913.526.1693 or visit www.womenvision.org.