News & Updates

WMI ON YOUTUBE
WMI has just uploaded a 10 minute video about the Uganda Loan Program onto YouTube. The talented Leanne Long, a former editor at the Discovery Channel, edited the footage shot by Board Members in Uganda this past January. She also helped prepare the script and provides the narration. The video has proven to be a wonderful promotional tool. It is a great way to introduce members of the public, foundations and other interested organizations to WMI's mission and goals. Please save the link below if you would like to send it on to any friends or colleagues. Click here to check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oMjsAuz2lk

BUILDING COMPLETE
The building has been completed and is ready for use. WMI's Local Director, Olive Wolimbwa, has ordered a safe to help manage borrower payments when she can't get to the bank immediately. The community is raising funds to purchase chairs for the meeting hall and there are already 20 chairs in placel. Olive has moved WMI's records into the office space and she is overseeing the carpenter who is making a meeting table and 10 chairs for the WMI office. The building will be an enormous asset to the entire Buyobo community and the villagers are looking forward to putting it to good use.

BETHESDA INTERNS
WMI is very fortunate to have 7 interns working here in Bethesda this summer:

Laura Van Oudenaren (Davidson); Montana Stevenson (UVA); Bryan Norris (Davidson); Liz Scroggs (Tulane); Alex Richardson (Oberlin); David Jaffe (Wheaton College); and, Victoria Stevenson (Tufts), in charge of support services. They have been working steadily since the beginning of June on a very complicated statistical analysis project. Using licenses for the JMP software program that were generously provided free of charge by parent company SAS in Cary, N.C., they are analyzing data from the WMI semi-annual surveys to create a profile of the borrowers in the loan program and to measure the program's impact. The interns are also researching and preparing grant applications and working on WMI's web site and media content. They are all terrific and WMI is benefiting enormously from their willingness to dedicate their time and energy to working on our loan program.

BUYOBO INTERNS
Tobin Jones and Danica Straith, juniors at McGill University, spent most of May and early June interning with WMI in Buyobo, Uganda. Their stay there was enormously helpful to building the WMI program. After numerous trips to Mbale and innumerable hours tinkering with Olive's computer, they were able to install a modem and get her hooked up with wireless Internet access. This was huge step forward for the WMI program. Olive can now send e-mails and communicate via the Internet without having to travel the 2 hours to Mbale by bus and without having to wait in line at the local Internet Cafe.

Tobin and Dani worked on automating the WMI records and provided Olive with Excel spreadsheet training. Olive has been attending computer training school and with Dani and Tobin with her for a month, she made rapid progress.

The interns launched the WMI tutoring program with 40 children for an hour each day. They reported that the children were angels and eager for the help with their schoolwork. WMI provided notebooks, pencils and some simple workbooks. The woman paid 1,000 shillings per week for each child - which is about 50 cents. We believe that the improvement programs that WMI launches must be working toward sustainability. The small fee helped support the program and it helped the women put a value and spending priority on education for their children. The tutoring program will continue in the fall.

BORROWER PROFILES
Tobin and Dani spent some of their time in the village taking pictures and interviewing borrowers. We will include a succession of borrower profiles in the Updates.

Namono Lakeri - Purple Group

Namono is strong, motivated, and a true business woman. When the rain starts to pour at a group meeting it is she who is suddenly there with a bag of second hand jackets, ready to capitalize on the turn in events and collect those extra shillings that go a long way.

In 1996 Namono became a widow, her husband becoming yet another victim of AIDS. For years she struggled to support herself and five children on the small coffee plantation left by her husband, until she was eventually forced to begin selling second hand clothing as well to make ends meet.

With the introduction of WMI, Namono took out a much needed 300,000 shilling loan to expand her second hand clothing business to the productive enterprise it is today. Currently all her children are able to go to school, and she even has enough left over to enjoy little luxuries, like milk for tea, which was beyond their reach before.

JULY LOAN ROUND
The next round of loans in scheduled for the end of July. Because of the local demand and your generous support, WMI has sufficient funds to increase the July Loan Round from 40 new borrowers to 80 new borrowers. WMI is also able to increase the maximum loan amount for the most experienced borrowers from $150 to $250 dollars.

LIBRARY PROGRESS
The response to WMI's book drive to start a small children's library in the Meeting Hall in the new building has been overwhelming. We have already collected over 1,000 books! WMI Advisory Board Members Kathy Staudaher and Carol Van Oudenaren are continuing to organize the books. Kathy's daughter, Christina Esposito is continuing to compile the book inventory and insert the pockets in the back.

The first shipment of 100 books has already landed in Uganda, via the Enid Burki Suitcase Express. It included over 25 youth atlases donated by Pyle Middle School students - and at least 50 more have been collected. This will be an enormous resource for the local school, which will be able to borrow the atlases for lessons.

WMI will be able to ship a large quantity of books at the end of July with a family that is relocating to Uganda for the next several years. If you have any books you would like to contribute, you can drop them off at the Carderock Club House: 8200 Hamilton Springs Court in Bethesda or e-mail Kathy at: staudaher@verizon.net .

FUEL EFFICIENT STOVES
WMI recently became a distributor of fuel efficient stoves and that initiative has proven very successful. Olive arranged a delivery of F.E.S.s with International Lifelines Fund (www.lifelinefund.org ). The first shipment of 81 stoves arrived in May and Olive sold them immediately. WMI offered the women installment payments over 4 weeks at no interest and all of the women made their payments on time. Several women have now become stove dealers and WMI will continue as the distributor to the women for this product, generating a small amount of income for WMI with each sale.

CONGRESSIONAL VISITS
WMI has begun a round of visits to Capitol Hill to inform legislators about its work on international poverty alleviation. We believe that financial empowerment motivates women to become advocates for their country's political and economic stability. This stability can lead to long term growth and sustained poverty reduction. In terms of developing human capacity, microfinance delivers extraordinarily high returns on very small capital investments. Through WMI's outreach, American women have built a bridge to touch the lives of their counterparts on the other side of the globe. Our collective impact has demonstrated that you do not have to be a Nobel laureate to be a catalyst for change.

Please feel free to contact any board members with your input. Thank you so much for your ongoing interest and support. We are all helping change the face of poverty, one loan at a time.

Gratefully,

WMI Board of Directors
Robyn Nietert         rgnietert@aol.com
Betsy Gordon         betsygord@comcast.net
Deborah Smith       deborahwsmith@yahoo.com
June Kyakobye       junekyaks@verizon.net
Trix Vandervossen  bvandervossen@imf.org
Jane Erickson         ericksonjn@verizon.net
Terry Ciccotelli        teresa.t.ciccotelli@saint-gobain.com