San Diego's Floresta Exemplifies the Kind of Micro Lending Awarded Noble Peace Prize.
-- San Diego Based Charity Has Made 3,500 Micro Loans in Five Developing Nations
-- Women in Oaxaca Sell Pine-Needle Baskets, African Villagers Start a Catering Business, One Enterprising Mexican Farmer's Taco Stand Leads to His Own Corn Mill
SAN DIEGO -- For almost 20 years, the San Diego-based international charity Floresta has helped thousands of poor villagers start their own businesses as a way out of poverty. Similar to the efforts of Noble Peace Prize winner, Bangladesh banker Muhammad Yunus, Floresta (www.floresta.org) continues to expand its scope of lending no-money-down, low-interest loans to poor people who do not qualify for conventional business loans.
From an initial village in the Dominican Republic to hundreds in Haiti, Mexico, Africa and Thailand, Floresta has made over 3,500 micro business loans. The Christian charity's main focus is to transform the lives of the rural poor by reversing deforestation and economic decline. They have been responsible for planting over three million trees and revitalizing thousands of small farms across hundreds of villages in Africa, Haiti, Mexico, Thailand and the Dominican Republic.
Executive director Scott Sabin is available to talk to the news media about the significant impact of micro loans and to detail some of the villagers whose lives have been changed by Floresta's efforts, including:
* African villagers who used a $150 loan to start a catering business and then used the profits to open an orphanage.
* A woman in the Dominican Republic who received a $75 loan to open a convenience store. Subsequent loans have helped her continue to grow the business from dry goods to dairy and meat products.
* A Mexican farmer who took out a $100 loan to open a taco stand and was so successful, he qualified for a second loan used to open a corn mill.
* Women in Oaxaca, Mexico used $50 loans to begin a project of creating pine-needle baskets. The products provide a way for them to increase their income and an incentive for them to preserve their local forest.
The average Floresta loan is $100 and repayment is enforced by peer accountability.
Scott Sabin can be reached at: 858-274-3718 or ssabin@floresta.org.
