Global Food Crisis Fund gives $73,000 for microloan program in DR.

A grant of $73,000 has been given from the General Board's Global Food Crisis Fund to continue support for a microloan program in the Dominican Republic. In another grant of $10,000, the fund responds to a Church World Service appeal for food security in Niger, at a time when media reports are that the hunger crisis is worsening.

Funds for the microloan program in the DR will cover staffing, administrative and travel expenses, committee capacity development, and capital for loans. The program "goes beyond generating income for borrowers; it stabilizes and strengthens the lives of the working poor," reported fund manager Howard Royer. "Coordinated by Beth Gunzel and closely allied with Iglesia de los Hermanos (the Church of the Brethren in the Dominican Republic), the effort engages 494 participants in 18 communities."

"While not all the small-loan enterprises are of an agrarian or food-related nature, the generation of adequate income is key to improving health and combating chronic poverty in the Dominican Republic," Royer said. "Beyond that, as former coordinators Jeff and Peggy Boshart have observed, this innovative small-loan program in a small part of the world is a powerful witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ."

A strength of the program is its enlistment and training of community development committees in each locality. The committees work with individual borrowers through five cycles of loans. The fund has provided sole support of the small-loan venture since its inception. Last year the program drew on the fund for $94,000. New budget parameters call for a yearly reduction in outside support, moving from $73,000 this year to $36,000 by 2009.

The funds given to Niger will help provide shipment and distribution of food, replenishing seed stock, and teaching better agricultural practices. A matching grant was given by the General Board's Emergency Disaster Fund. CNN reported that Doctors Without Borders is finding that one in five children in Niger are suffering from malnutrition, and that more than five children per 10,000 under the age of five are dying each day.

For more on the Global Food Crisis Fund, see www.brethren.org/genbd/global_mission/gfcf.htm.

Source: 9/14/2005 Newsline
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