Environmental Sustainability via WCCN's Capital for Communities Fund 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
Nancy is an organic farmer living in Southern Ecuador and is client of WCCN partner agency FACES. Her first loan in 2009 was for only $500 that she used to buy a few pigs to fatten for market and to feed her family. She also grows limes and passion fruits organically. Nancy does not use chemical fertilizers because she does not want to add to the contamination of the earth. She fertilizers her plants using the manure from her pigs and chickens. Unfortunately, her commitment to farming organically is not rewarded with a higher price for her organic fruit.
Since her first loan in 2009, Nancy states her life is better because her production and income are growing. She likes working with FACES because they offer her flexible repayment terms. Many microfinance agencies require weekly or bimonthly payments, but FACES only requires payments every three months, which is important for famers as it takes months to plant, harvest and sell their crops.
Nancy plans to continue working with FACES and farming because in her words she “has to keep farming to send her three children to school.”
