Re: Credit unions praised for global work, by Susan Mate, Business Edge, Aug. 10, 2007, and online at www.businessedge.ca.
Thank you very much to Business Edge and writer Susan Mate for your excellent story on Stephen Lewis, credit unions and the power of microfinancing.
It was wonderful and refreshing to see this Canadian hero featured on the cover of a business paper, promoting the leadership and success of credit unions in Canada and around the world supporting microcredit!
I was also pleased to learn that Business Edge is not only available in my home city of Calgary, but it also directly reaches more than 180,000 businesses across Alberta, B.C., Ontario, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
As a volunteer partner with Results Canada, a citizens' based advocacy group dedicated to eradicating extreme poverty, hunger and disease, I have been learning a great deal about the miracle of microcredit and its positive effect on the above issues. Results has been a strong leader and supporter of this movement.
The Global Microcredit Summit Campaign was first led in 1996 by Sam Daley Harris, founder and president of Results. The goal was for microcredit to reach and improve the lives of 100 million of the world's poorest women and their families by the year 2006. Last year, that goal was successfully reached.
Along with Harris, Results Canada helped to host the Global Microcredit Summit last November in Halifax. Muhammad Yunus, who mere days earlier had been declared the recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, was among the 3,000 delegates who attended the summit representing more than 100 countries, including many from Africa, Asia and Latin America.
At the summit, Harris shared a commitment for all delegates to sign, that 175 million of the poorest families will directly benefit from microcredit by the year 2015.
Microcredit loans can be as little as $20 and help women to purchase materials to make clothing, or cattle or livestock for food, or farm tools or even to purchase cellphones.
Microcredit brings great hope to those who previously have been without any.
Specifically, microfinancing has helped strengthen women's, children's and men's access to food and clean drinking water, sanitation and education.
And 98 per cent of the loan recipients, mainly women, pay their loans back in full. In turn, investors get a stable return on investment knowing they have directly helped a family to break out of the poverty cycle and onto the path towards a healthy and sustainable life.
Credit unions, banks, NGOs and individual lenders all play a pivotal role in providing low-interest loans to people struggling across the developing world, as well as here in Canada.
The beauty of it is that anyone can easily get involved in promoting and supporting microcredit, and microcredit investment tools are offered through many credit unions and some banks across in Canada.
Again, thanks so much, Business Edge, for sharing about microfinancing, the leading role of credit unions and the good words of Stephen Lewis with your readers.
- Michael Gretton, Calgary volunteer partner, Results Canada www.resultscanada.ca
