MENA Microfinance for women - the objective

[Geetha Balvannanathan]

I would like to welcome all members to this forum. This website is intended to build a strong community that shares the common belief of fostering social change in the smoothest way possible.

MENA Microfinance is not a business that intends to make money and pay large wages of employees. It is intended to function as a self-sufficient social project with the help of social change luminaries who contribute their time as volunteers and philanthropists who contribute their funds to an identifiable and measurable cause.

After the initial set-up phase and the distribution of grants to the most needy identified today, we plan to focus on building clear statistics on the dollar value - from a social perspective - of the funds granted to MENA Microfinance.

I have personally spoken with a number of ladies (expatriates and GCC nationals alike) who are not able to sustain their families for absence of the main contributor. This absence is due to a number of reasons such as demise of the spouse leaving behind a widow and orphans or simply remarriage with a degree of neglect towards the first or second spouse. Sometimes the ladies get direct government support and sometimes they are unaware where to go or are reluctant to resort to charity and count on the support of the extended family members. Such support is not necessarily granted. Two years ago, the shocking story of a lady in Sharjah who was left destitute came out in the papers and the lady received ultimately a lot of support but up until then, she had lived a very difficult life deprived of any dignity.

While MENA Microfinance has no position on the social factors mentioned above, the focus is clearly to identify skills or crafts in such women and help them develop a business that would allow them to sustain themselves and their families. For the most unfortunate and possibly illiterate ladies, we are developing a coaching and mentoring arm that would allow them to learn a skill and then be able to develop a business. This last part will be dealt with by one of the volunteer members of MENA Microfinance, the IFWE and Build Self Groups led by Ilham Shebani and Annabel Clough.

Throughout the year, businesses that received grants or actual loans by way of one of the three models mentioned in the previous post will be monitored and success stories will be publicised on this website as and when they are confirmed.

Volunteers are required to help within the areas of mentoring, of helping in setting up the business, of identifying women in need and giving accountant time for the monitoring of the business activities. Businesses will only receive grants if there is a clear accounting system and openness to transparency. Monitoring these businesses will be a milestone in building statistical data for a measurable dollar value of MENA Microfinance intervention.

Thanks again to all of you who have joined and please feel free to invite others to join as well.

Kind regards to all.

Geetha