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Fonkoze - Educating Individuals to Become Self Sustaining

Guest post by: Grameen Foundation

Article Overview: Fonkoze, Haiti’s largest microfinance institution, is another good example of integrating microfinance with other services such as medical treatment, remittances, empowerment, insurance against risk and natural disasters, health insurance, and in particular, education to help improve clients’ situations and contribute to the overall economy.

Free Download - Conclusion - Microfinance: A Platform for Social Change By Grameen Foundation
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Fonkoze - Educating Individuals to Become Self Sustaining

Fonkoze, Haiti’s largest microfinance institution, is another good example of integrating
microfinance with other services such as medical treatment, remittances, empowerment,
insurance against risk and natural disasters, health insurance, and in particular, education to help
improve clients’ situations and contribute to the overall economy. Fonkoze was founded by
Father Joseph Philippe in 1994, when Haiti was in the midst of struggling for freedom and
equality, with the goal of providing Haitians with the means to develop themselves economically.
As a result, the foundation devoted itself to delivering microfinance and related educational
services to the most economically disadvantaged of Haiti—mostly women.
The organization believes that education is the cornerstone of economic democracy.
Since 52 percent of the Haitian population and over 60 percent of Fonkoze’s clients are illiterate,
Fonkoze offers literacy and educational programs in their 250 literacy centers throughout Haiti.
Their programs consist of four modules: two on reading and writing, one on business skills, and
one on sexual and reproductive health issues. Fonkoze is working on developing new additional
programs to focus on human rights and environmental protection. By March 2005, Fonkoze had
trained 22,000 individuals to read and write.22 These education programs, coupled with the many
microfinance products that Fonkoze offers, we believe will provide clients with more knowledge,
confidence, and tools to help them overcome all dimensions of the poverty that affects them.

Microfinance: A Platform for Social Change
by Marge Magner
March 2007
Grameen Foundation

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  Conclusion - Microfinance: A Platform for Social Change

Home > African-Accounts > Grameen Foundation > Fonkoze Educating Individuals to Become Self Sustaining
Article Tags: business skills, economic democracy, education programs, educational programs, educational services, environmental protection, fonkoze, freedom and equality, grameen foundation, haitian population, haitians, health insurance, literacy centers, marge magner, medical treatment, microfinance, natural disasters, remittances, reproductive health issues, sexual and reproductive health

About the Author: Grameen Foundation
RSS for Grameen's articles - Visit Grameen's website

Grameen Foundation's mission is to empower the world's poorest people to lift themselves out of poverty with dignity through access to financial services and to information. With tiny loans, financial services and technology, we help the poor, mostly women, start self-sustaining businesses to escape poverty. Founded in 1997 by a group of friends who were inspired by the work of Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, our global network of microfinance partners reaches over 3.6 million families in 25 countries.

Click here to visit Grameen's website
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Re: How do you earn trust with an online business? Re: How do you earn trust with an online business? - Add VALUE to your target market. How? Well depends. If your business can start by Educating the target market about how your product or Service can add value to their lives. This can be done via Video (hot right now), basic text, audio etc. I've had a lot of success with Video and am using it primarily as a lead generation tool. If done right your Content can add Value and add to your bottom line at the same time while building Trust.
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