How Does Five Talents Work?

In most cases we follow the 10-step procedure below:

1. Identify a Partner - Five Talents identifies, trains and funds a partner to run a micro-loans programme. This is normally with the help of the local anglican church in the country concerned.

2. Group Formation - Groups of entrepreneurs are invited for training. Groups are between 5-10 people. They can be all women, all men, or a mixture.

3. Training - The groups are trained by the local Five Talents staff in basic business skills: planning, marketing, book-keeping.

4. Savings - Groups open a bank account and start regular saving, to reach 30% of their requested loan amount. This is a sign of commitment and part-security for the loan

5. Business Planning - Clients draw up their individual business plans, and apply for a group loan.

6. Loan - Loans are deposited on the Group account, once all conditions have been met. In the first round, loans are a maximum of £40 per person.

7. Investment - Each entrepreneur uses his/her share of the loan to invest in his/her business. For example, buying a piece of equipment, machinery, or stock.

8. Monitoring - Five Talents local staff visit the clients for encouragement and supervision.

9. Repayment - Loans are repaid over 6 months with interest. The interest pays the local staff and office running costs. The Group is jointly responsible for repayments. Late payments can be met from the prior-savings.

10. Recycling - The loan, when paid back, is then loaned out to other groups. Groups can re-apply for subsequent (and bigger) loans as their businesses expand. Some groups are on their 8th or 9th loan cycle. Eventually the business has grown to provide sufficient collateral to qualify for individual loans from commercial banks.

Where do they work?

Five Talents is currently supporting 13 micro-loan programmes on three continents. Click on the link to find details of the country programmes.

The total number of loan clients is now around 10,000 per month, of whom two-thirds are women entrepreneurs.

Each loan reaches more than the individual entrepreneur: including the families of the entrepreneur and the families of their employees means that each loan typically impacts 20 lives. Our target is to reach at least 50,000 loan-clients by 2008, impacting one million people through job creation and family livelihoods.

Women only!!

Two-thirds of Five Talents’ loan recipients are women, and they tend to be better at repaying their loans. Why? Check the following list of observations drawn from our programmes:

· they work better in groups where trust is based on friendship and common values (- microfinance works best when groups of entrepreneurs share risk and are jointly responsible for repaying the loans)

· they are more likely to challenge the prevailing culture of dependancy on handouts

· they are less likely to drink the income – they are faithful to their word and less likely to divert the loan to other pressing needs.

· they are more likely to ensure income is prioritised to education and healthcare for their families

· they are more socially responsible employers, seeing beyond their own needs

· they are shrewd – seeing business opportunities and negotiating hard

· they handle money wisely – seeing priorities clearly, and able to appreciate longer term consequences of choices

· they are familiar with hard work – often bearing multiple responsibilities for childcare, food growing and preparation, cleaning and sometimes coping with lazy or abusive husbands.

· they enjoy being empowered with the opportunity, skills and resources to help themselves and their family.

Case Studies - Overview

1. Brick-making - Joy (Kigezi, Uganda) – widow with 6 children, now employs 13 people.

2. Tailoring - Asha (Nagpur, India) - a mother of two children and a successful entrepreneur.

3. Fish - Padma (Madras, India) - hopeful that her new business will eventually bring in the income she earned before the Tsunami swept her old job away.

4. Shoe making and Repairs - Elisha (Kasese, Uganda) – disabled, employs 5 apprentices.

5. Soap making - Mary (Manila, Philippines) – single mother, 3 sons. She makes scented soap which she hand-delivers in bulk, targeting to sell 300kg per week.

6. Sandwich and Juice Seller - Renee (Lima, Peru) - with the profits, Renee buys medicines to treat one of her five children who has a skin infection.

7. Vegetable Shop - Kunda (Nagpur, India) - now Kunda’s mother and two sisters help her with her shop and the business earns £80 each month!

8. Handcrafts - Mats - Sitoempuls Family (Jakarta, Indonesia) - the Fivetalents loan programme will also mean that many families like this one will not be enslaved by the loan sharks.

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