Ecuador Environment via WCCN's Capital for Communities Note
Loan
Nonprofit creating economic opportunities for micro-entrepreneurs and farmers in Latin America
Founded in 1984, Working Capital for Community Needs (WCCN) is a nonprofit organization that empowers low-income Latin American entrepreneurs and small-scale farmers through access to microcredit and fair trade markets by sustaining partnerships with Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and Farming Cooperatives in Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru.
Summary
Your dollars support WCCN partner agencies that provide training in sustainable and organic farming methods to help small-scale farmers prosper and protect the natural environment.
Social Impact
WCCN partner agencies combine microfinance with technical assistance in the areas of entrepreneurship and care of the environment creating successful businesses in harmony with the natural environment.
Impact Example
Living in the mountains of rural Ecuador, Maria Christina Ruoles Arce is 54 years old and never had the means to support herself. With the strong support and encouragement of her daughter, she borrowed $300 from Working Capital for Community Needs’ partner, FACES, to start a fish farm.
The pride Maria has in supporting herself is evident. She refers to herself as “a businesswomen” and says she has a "rural ecological business" - raising fish in harmony with the natural environment. Maria doesn't use any chemicals in her fisheries and she uses the organic fish water as fertilizer for her vegetable garden and fruit trees.
Maria used her first loan to buy fish eggs to begin her farm.
