Promoting Employment
Through Entrepreneurship
As HIV goes dormant through antiretroviral treatment, many patients become healthy enough to work and support their family. However, with unemployment exceeding 60 percent in Kenya, many HIV patients must create their own source of income.
Tree of Lives is able to provide resources to help individuals become self-sustaining by developing new businesses that provide not only personal financial support, but contribute positively to the local economy as well.
Micro-Lending Business Development
Income Generating Activities (IGA) are critical to the health and well-being of many who live in areas of extreme poverty. Tree of Lives has partnered with the Kenya-based Desert Oasis Resident Empowerment Program (DOREP) to assist with administration of our micro-loan program. We currently support 23 HIV+ entrepreneurs with business loans totaling $5,500.00 to implement and grow their own IGA. Private donations from individual and corporate sponsors are utilized to give HIV-positive patients the funding and support necessary to start their own micro-business, including livestock and dairy farming, vegetable farming, soap manufacturing and charcoal production for heating and cooking.
Through DOREP, Tree of Lives provides small loans in the amounts of $50 to $200. To receive financing, program candidates complete an application and submit a simple business plan for consideration. Once approved, the new business operators meet regularly with other business owners to trade tips, success stories and strategies for overcoming obstacles. These loans are generally paid back over a period of 6 to 12 months, with no interest.
A key to the micro-lending program is the recycling of the dollars. As each loan is repaid, the money is recycled as another loan, thus multiplying the value of each dollar in defeating poverty. These precious dollars allow patients to launch small enterprises that produce self-sustaining livelihoods, enabling patients to feed, clothe and educate their families as they work their way out of the poverty trap.
Tree of Lives supports the Holy Family Centre’s commitment to empower their patients with funding for their small business by sponsoring support and strategy meetings in a group environment for the business owners and by offering advisory oversight from our micro-lending project committee in Norfolk, Virginia. Our 2010 goal is to raise $10,000.00 to fund 50 patients of Nazareth Hospital and the Holy Family Centre with the Kenyan equivalent of $50 to $200 in order to bring their business dreams to life. Loans are generally repaid within 6 to 12 months, at no interest. Then the money is loaned to other qualified recipients.
