Small Investment, Big Impact
How microfinance empowers people living in poverty to build their own success
PEOPLE IN GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS with First Presbyterian Church of Atlanta don’t concern themselves with the age-old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. They only know that poultry can help pull them and their communities out of poverty. To them, the high-pitched peeps of chicks sound like prosperity.
Esther Wakonyu Mwangi runs a potato/green groceries business and is the treasurer of the PCEA Chaka Town Church Upendo Women Microfinance Group.
Photo by Kathryn McCain Kite
Through a sustainable program of microfinance—small loans and grants that allow people to establish or expand businesses and gain financial independence—First Presbyterian is helping individuals and communities produce and sell chickens and eggs in Jamaica, Cuba, and Kenya. But the fowl are only one of the microfinance-funded products and services that are making a major difference to partners in those and in First Presbyterian’s other partner countries of Brazil and Haiti.
Microfinance, also known as microcredit, arose in the 1970s as a means of empowering people to change their own lives. The man who developed the concept, a Bangladeshi economist, Muhammad Yunus, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, along with the bank he established, for “their efforts to create economic and social development from below.” First Presbyterian members have seen the idea at work across the world.
In Jamaica, Karlene Lindsay, Marylin McKenzie, and Adessa Sappleton each received loans of less than $200 to buy 50 chicks apiece and the food to sustain them. The money they repay is being recycled into loans for other projects, such as $221 for Richard Gavin to expand his business selling clothes and confections, and $150 for Herbert Williams to buy carrot seeds, fertilizer, and pesticides. Like the women before them, the men will pay back their loans as they make a profit, and the money will be lent to other residents of the community.
All the loan recipients are members of congregations of the United Church in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands, which has worked with First Presbyterian and Hillside Presbyterian Church in Decatur since shortly after 2002, when First and Hillside formed a local partnership with an international reach.
MICROFINANCE IS IN KEEPING with First Presbyterian’s mission “to accompany,” not to “do for,” said the Rev. Leigh Bonner, director of global mission. “Through microfinance we’re giving people the opportunity to make their own judgments about what’s best for their community,”
First Presbyterian funds some projects directly, but for the long haul, the idea is to invest in ways that empower individual people and, through them, enrich their communities.
Bonner compares the concept to the parable of the mustard seed. “It is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown, it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches” (Matthew 13:31-32 NRSV). Through microfinance, she said, “a small contribution of money can lead to a big impact.”
“We don’t need to control the situation. Microfinance allows us to see what God can do without our direct input or our agenda.”
REV. LEIGH BONNER
First Presbyterian’s partner organization in each country has its own way of operating its microfinance program.
In Kenya, students in the senior school of Mount Kenya Academy get accounting and business management experience by helping women in the Chaka microfinance program keep their books. Both entities are part of First Presbyterian’s 25-year-old partnership in Kenya.
The microfinance program there began in 2010 with 30 women from Chaka Presbyterian Church receiving small loans. No one has defaulted, said Cindy Candler, a leader in the Kenya partnership.
Some loans in Chaka have gone to pay for basic things, such as an awning for a market stall to keep fabrics from fading. Others have funded business startups or expansions from beauty salons to stone quarries to livestock— including chickens.
Catherine Wanjiri Kariaki, a mother of two and owner of a small hair salon in Chaka, used a loan to add a shop selling beauty products. She has expanded through two additional loans.
“This has been a big present from God,” she said.
The program has changed the women’s feelings about themselves, said Helen Hatch, a member of First Presbyterian’s Kenya committee. “The first time we met those women, they were shy and withdrawn,” she said. “Now they have so much self-confidence. It’s been amazing to see what a little bit of money can do.”
Students at Mount Kenya Academy also benefit from the microfinance program by applying their schoolwork to real life, said teacher Ann Mwanga. “This has provided an opportunity to teach outside the classroom.”
IN MARCH 2019, First Presbyterian travelers sampled the product of a microfinance loan in Brazil, and the result garnered rave reviews. Andre Lopes, a member of the Messejana Presbyterian Church in Pirambu, is known for the chocolate cake at the bakery he operates.
“It was the best cake I’ve ever had, with the best icing!” said First Presbyterian member Gentle Lee. “Everything was perfect. Five minutes after he cut that cake, there was none left.”
Microloans have helped many businesses in Brazil, including that of baker Maria Fernandes, shown above with one of her trademark cakes.
Microfinance loans in Brazil have also funded catering, clothing and accounting businesses. Eighty percent have been successful.
“This is an amazing program supporting the community with sustainability,” said Guillermo Santana, chairman of First Presbyterian’s Brazil committee.
Perhaps as a result of decades under Communism, partners in Cuba utilize microfinance money collectively rather than in loans to individuals.
Some women in the Reformed church in Perico, First Presbyterian’s partner since 2013, wanted to make and sell jewelry in order to help themselves and support the church.
In 2016, First Presbyterian member Susan Farrar delivered supplies for the project, none of which were available in Perico. On her next trip, Farrar learned that the women were using so many expensive beads in each piece that they would lose money with every sale. She quickly pulled together a lesson on basic business practices.
When she was back in Perico in January of 2019, the women handed her $155 they had set aside to buy more supplies. They, and the church, were making money.
Then there are the chickens.
Through a donation from First Presbyterian member Wheeler Bryan, the Perico church bought 10 chickens and two roosters in 2017 to provide protein for the weekly breakfasts the church furnishes for elderly and infirm members. In 2019, Pastor Zorky Crespo’s husband, Rolando, who oversees the project, expanded the flock to 54 hens and two roosters with additional funding from Bryan.
“It was a new awakening to have the chickens. Even the roosters’ singing has made a difference. I feel good that what I’ve done with chickens gives people something good to eat.”
ROLANDO CRESPO, CUBA
Now, instead of buying eggs at a high price (if they are even available—and often they aren’t), the Cuban church is now selling excess eggs.
“It was a new awakening to have the chickens,” Rolando said, speaking both metaphorically and literally. “Even the roosters’ singing has made a difference. I feel good that what I’ve done with chickens gives people something good to eat.”
BECAUSE OF CONDITIONS IN HAITI, microfinance there has been more difficult to maintain than in other partner countries.
“There’s not much these people can do,” said Selma Ridgeway of the Haiti Committee. “They can’t grow crops. They can’t keep livestock alive except for donkeys and goats. Inflation is high. The economy is bad.”
First Presbyterian has worked with the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti on the island of La Gonave since the early 1990s. Most microfinance there has been extended to people who buy goods in Port-au-Prince to resell on the island. But transportation is time-consuming, expensive, and can be risky. One woman who made the trip was robbed at gunpoint and had to give up the goods she had bought before she was able to return home.
“That’s the sad part,” said Ridgeway. “The good part is that when we were there in January 2019, people said they were so grateful they had something to do. They felt empowered as individuals because they had a business, even if it wasn’t doing well.”
There has been at least one positive story of microfinance efforts in Haiti. A woman known as Madame Lisson used a loan to expand the bakery she was operating out of her home. Every day she makes bread, which she has sold to send her children to university.
Visitors report that the sweet smell of freshly baked bread permeates her neighborhood.
SEEING PEOPLE IN OTHER CULTURES define success on their own terms has been part of the learning process for First Presbyterian members involved in global mission.
Esther Wairimu Wambugu owns a cattle-rearing business.
Photo by Kathryn McCain Kite
If a woman selling soap in La Gonave makes enough money to buy more soap and sell it, “she has a job,” said Ridgeway. “By American terms that’s nothing. To her, that’s a lot. We can’t do things the American way.”
To plant the seed of a loan or startup fund and step back requires trust, said Bonner. Trust in the recipient and trust in God.
“We don’t need to control the situation,” she said. “Microfinance allows us to see what God can do without our direct input or our agenda.”
On World Communion Sunday, Senior Pastor Tony Sundermeier talked to the congregation about the impact of microfinance on the global partners of First Presbyterian and on the church itself. “The power that local people have when they participate in the marketplace, not just to provide for their own families... but to provide for the larger communities and create economies that are strong and vibrant—this is something that has shaped my theology,” he said. In turn, he said, First Presbyterian’s focus on economic empowerment in Atlanta “is being shaped by our global partners teaching our church about economic empowerment as a ministry of the gospel of Jesus Christ.”
