Teach a woman to fish…and everyone eats

Cooking Up Success in Haiti

In Haiti, the western hemisphere’s poorest country—devastated by an earthquake January 12 and a series of aftershocks since—Chriselia Archill is raising four children, while also supporting her mother and four of her siblings, on earnings from her successful restaurant. The extended family lives in the seaport town of Les Cayes, about 140 miles southwest of Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince.

Gulchekhra Sartbayeva and her sewing shop

FINCA Solar Energy Project Lights Up Homes and Businesses in Uganda

As Busy as a Bee

Gaspa Garidad, Haiti's Famn Vayant Village Banking Group

Armenia’s Green Microentrepreneur Sells Recycled Slippers to Survive

Hasmik Hovhannisyan lives alone in the declining Armenian city of Abovyan, about five miles from the country’s capital of Yerevan. Her husband died over a year ago, while she was suffering from a stomach ailment. Overnight, she became a childless widow without any source of income. Her brother helped her financially as much as he could, but she quickly realized that she needed to create her own source of income—and knew this would be a great challenge.

From Tragedy to University

Nicolasa Carolina López Rodriguez, who lives in a small town on the outskirts of Managua, recalls the tremendous hardships she endured as a young single mother: “My husband abandoned me, leaving me with five young children. When one of my kids suffered severe burns in a fire, I realized I had to find a way to meet life’s challenges on my own.”

She started a business making and selling tortillas to support her family...

In Afghanistan, “The Sun of Luck Started Shining on the Windows of our House”

Roqia, a 20-year old woman who lives with her parents and six younger children in Sharak-e-Awlya in Mazar-e- Sharif in northern Afghanistan, tells her story in her own words:

Marie Nicole Moise-Deriscel, Haiti

Afghanistan Client Sharifa

Though her husband had a job as a driver, he didn’t earn enough money to provide the family with a steady diet. Sharifa heard about FINCA’s Village Banking loans from her neighbors and was interested to learn more...

The Valiant Women of Haiti

When Imacula Eliza heard about Famn Vayant, she decided right away to join, knowing it would boost her business selling beans, rice, and sugar from her home. Imacula travels to the market in nearby Les Cayes by motorcycle, balancing large sacks of food on the back.

Grandmother in Zambia Is Sole Provider for Three Grandchildren

Maria Lucia Potosi Ramirez, Ecuador

Milling Hope and Success from Sorrow and Adversity

Angelina Sanyemba: Education Entrepreneur in Zambia

Ana Osorio can afford meat and schoolbooks for her children thanks to FINCA

Fatima Mohammad Mussah, Afghanistan

Fatima Mohammad Mussah currently lives in the village of Jebrayil in Herat Province, Afghanistan. Married, with ten children, she runs a small but successful tailoring business to help support her family.

In 1980, as fighting intensified between the Soviet invaders and the Afghan resistance fighters (mujahideen), and her family fled the Northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif with thousands of others for the safety of Iran.

When the Taliban seized power in 1996, Estorai, a young woman from Kabul, had managed to get just four years of formal schooling.

To help support her family, she started a home-based beauty parlor in secret. Estorai feared savage reprisals from the regime if she or her customers were discovered violating the ban against cosmetics. Some Afghan women had their fingertips chopped off for daring to wear nail polish.

Margarita Garcia Gonzaga: mother of two and food shop owner, Village Bank member in Mexico

Margarita Garcia Gonzaga lives in Jonacatepec outside Mexico City. In the late 1990s, Margarita and her family were broke: her husband was out of work, and it looked like they would have to take their two small children out of school because they could not keep up with the monthly tuition payments. Margarita had a microbusiness, purchasing wholesale food items and reselling them to her neighbors, but her income was too small to support the family. Then FINCA Mexico began forming village banking groups in her community.