| Houston Chronicle - Students learn global lending can bring sweet success By Jeannie Kever |
Houston Chronicle City & State
February - Monday 9, 2009
Students learn global lending can bring sweet success by Jeannie Kever
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6253299.html
Joe Konkel and his friends may not be able to save the world, but they hope to make it a little sweeter.
Konkel is one of the honey connoisseurs in the University of St. Thomas microcredit program, which encourages students to make small loans to would-be entrepreneurs in developing countries.
The students support several honey-producing efforts in Mexico and recently agreed to expand into a remote region of Pakistan.
Making honey, it turns out, isnt just a matter of letting bees do their thing.
There are a lot of factors to consider, said Konkel, 20.
Students from the University of St. Thomas, along with a group from Rice University, have agreed to work with the Hashoo Foundation, a Houston-based organization led in Pakistan by Sarah Hashwani, a 2003 graduate of the University of St. Thomas. The project teaches women to produce honey and helps them sell it.
Cristal Montañez Baylor, executive director of the Hashoo Foundation, said the students financial help is needed, but their passion is even more important.
They recognize the need to give back to the world, Baylor said.
The Hashoo initiative has drawn international acclaim -- it won the BBCs World Challenge 2008 as a way to empower women.
The group will also be recognized next weekend when students from both schools attend a conference hosted by the Clinton Global Initiative at the University of Texas at Austin.
Increasingly, students are using microcredit to engage in international issues.
There are two characteristics of college students, said Tommy Fu, 20, a Rice senior. They want to make a difference, and theyre all short on money.
Seed Money
Microcredit -- also known as microfinance and popularized in books like Creating a World Without Poverty: Social Business and the Future of Capitalism by Muhammad Yunus -- involves making loans ranging from $25 to $200 or more to people in developing countries so they can start their own businesses.
Students say they like the idea that the loans allow people to help themselves.
I’m so anti-handout, said Michael Black, 24, a senior at the University of St. Thomas and one of the leaders of the student group there.
Students from both schools raise money for the loans. No school money is involved, and the students dont get course credit for the work.
Both groups make loans through Kiva.org.
Promoting global health
The University of St. Thomas program that began two years ago launched with a $100 loan to a woman from Peru, allowing her to purchase a mixer so she could sell baked goods. In all, the University of St. Thomas has made 125 loans, worth a total of $7,700.
The Rice effort began with students Dillon Eng, 19, and Josh Ozer, 20, who designed a training program to teach entrepreneurship during a class last year. Ozer spent the summer in Lesotho implementing the program as part of a Rice initiative to promote global health.
But they wanted to do more and set up their own nonprofit business, Owl Microfinance.
So far, they have made six loans and recently received their first payment.
Rice students say they would like to do something to help people closer to home, as well, although freshman Elena White noted that $25 in Tanzania goes a lot further than $25 in the U.S.
They have agreed to raise $270 for the Hashoo Foundation -- enough to buy three beehives.
Students from the University of St. Thomas hope to take it further.
Their program already sends students to Mexico to develop projects there, and the students are planning to send a team to Pakistan.
Were not just Santa Claus with money, Konkel said. Were learning from them.
jeannie.kever@chron.com |
Hashoo Foundation USA is a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization chartered in Houston, Texas in 2007 with the mission of alleviating poverty through economic self-sustenance and education. The Women Empowerment through Honey project is one of various strategies that are being developed to fulfill the founding philanthropic principles of the Hashoo Foundation in Pakistan and beyond. http://hashoofoundation.org/
University of St. Thomas Micro-credit Program - The Mission of the Program is to provide UST undergraduate students with a unique educational opportunity to learn practical ways and means to effect meaningful improvement in the lives of the world’s poor through active management of the Fund. By participation in the Program, these students will have the opportunity to learn practical methods by which freedom, equality, democracy and social justice may be enhanced by small loans to the poor.
www.stthom.edu/microcredit
Rice University Owl Microfinance goal is to fundamentally improve the lives of entrepreneurs both locally through business training and abroad through microloans. We aim to promote tangible student activism among the Rice student body through both the facilitation of such loans and outreach to the broader community. Additionally, we hope to inspire the broader Houston community to take part in collaborative action towards furthering microfinance.
www.owlmicrofinance.org
The World Challenge 08 is a global competition aimed at finding projects or small businesses from around the world that have shown enterprise and innovation at a grass roots level. World Challenge 08 is brought to you by BBC World News and Newsweek, in association with Shell, and is about championing and rewarding projects and business which really make a difference. The winner will receive a grant of USD $20 000 to put back into their project/business, and two runners up will each receive USD $10 000. Hashoo Foundation's Women Empowerment Honey Bee Farming Project - "Plan Bee" is the Winner of the BBC World Challenge 08. http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/html/index.php
Hashoo Foundation's Women Empowerment through Honey Bee Farming Project a Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) "Featured Commitment"
http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=2759&srcid=2762
Cristal Montañéz Baylor
Executive Director
Hashoo Foundation, USA
Three Allen Center
333 Clay Street, Suite 4980
Houston, TX 77002
Direct: +1 (713) 483-4990
Fax: +1 (713) 759-0112
www.hashoofoundation.org |
