Hi Audrey, Its great to see your entry in the competition! I have a few questions: What are the criteria that you use to determine which youth you give loans to? Also, you mention that you look at the repayment rate and the late payment rate to gauge your impact. What are these rates? Do most people repay their loans? Lastly, can you give some examples of the projects that youth have created with the money from YouthWorks loans?
Thanks!
Dana Frasz
Changemakers
Hi Dana!
The criteria we use is very lose. We evaluate the business plans submitted by borrowers. We have a business plan format in question form that most of our borrowers use. This makes it easy for them who may or may not have finished elementary to write a business plan. We are looking at the feasibility of their idea, not so much on whether they can write a plan good enough for business school.
As of the moment, we have a 14% late payment rate and 100% repayment rate. And so yes, I can definitely say that most people pay their loans.
I can't exactly give the names of the people we've helped since they are still minors, but one group of boys have created bags made from recycled tarpaulin. We use these tarpaulins for printing ads for billboards in Manila and also printing campaign posters during the last elections. Tarpaulin in the U.S., as I am told, is used to cover the baseball field. They won another international social entrepreneurship award and have exported to Europe and they also have buyers in California. Some local businesses have followed their lead. We've also helped a group of high school students who have made organic fertilizer. They are now looking at exporting to Japan and Europe. Their municipality has declared itself as the first organic municipality in the Philippines. We have managed to help them bring about an eco-tourism plan in their community and the setting up of an Institute for Organic Farming. All in all, our borrowers have provided more than 1,300 jobs.
could not find your "business plan format in question form" at http://www.youthmicrofinance.com !
pls send url to source, thanks.
Have you financed a project on rabbit farming ? I am interested in this.
Q: after approval of micro-loan, do you make a spot check on funded activities ?
We have not financed any project on rabbit farming because we have never received any such business plans. Besides, I am not entirely sure how sustainable it is since rabbits are mostly seen in pet shops and very few people have rabbits as pets.
In anything produced organically, chemical fertilizer or any chemical mix is not included. Organic farming does not allow the use of chemicals. From the little I know of it, it uses minerals form the soil. I do know that because of the chemical fertilizers, there have been deficiencies in the topsoil's minerals. Organic farmers and slowly trying to "give back life" to the soil again.
There is nothing special about the organic fertilizer, but the fact that there is no chemicals used and it takes its minerals from the soil. The end product being when you eat organically grown product, you are not digesting chemicals that harm your body. Again I know very little about organic farming, but what stands out was this explanation: remember when you were taking biology in high school and had to dissect a frog? You had to put chemicals in order to keep the frog alive, but not moving. You were freezing the frog while it was still alive. Well, as far as I know some chemical fertilizers, uses chemicals present in rate poison and those in freezing the frog before you dissect it for biology. So if you were to eat something that was sprayed with such chemicals, you are in turn freezing your body with the same chemicals you would freeze the frog while you are alive (much like the frog) or poisoning your body (much like the rat).
>.....we've helped .....minors
>.....one group of boys have created bags made from recycled tarpaulin.
>We use these tarpaulins for printing ads for billboards in Manila
>and also printing campaign posters during the last elections.
how do your boys join smaller pieces of tarpauline to make a larger piece ?
to tell you honestly, i cannot disclose how they make their product because that is up to them. I do know it, but they may not be very hapy with me disclosing it. In essence they get a bug used tarpaulin and try to make as many bags of different sizes and style as they can from it.
And yes, tarpaulin can be used as roofing material. However, there are several pros and cons in producing a roof instead of bags out of it and you have to look at how sustainable a business can be in producing bags as opposed to producing roof out of the material.
We have people visit the area where we provide the microfinance. We talk to our borrowers and members of their community. I have personally conducted trainings, mentored and monitored some borrowers in and these numbers were taken based on those. In some cases, we have young people we've mentored who have outsourced a portion of their production to another organization that provides employment to more than 300 retrenched (people who ahve been let go from their jobs) from being overseas workers.
YouthWorks provides microfinance and the y-SHOP. We also provide mentorship and a network through the network I've been able to build over the years through my other non-profit. We do not directly manufacture anything. Since we do not manufacture anything, we do not outsource manufacturing.
Our borrowers are the ones who establishes their business and we merely evaluate it, provide microfinance on businesses that are sustainable and mentorship and network to our borrowers. In this instance, our borrowers decided, since they do not have a particular expertise on one aspect of their production process, to outsource that aspect to another organization whose aim is to provide employment to the unemployed. In doing so, they are employing more than 300 unemployed workers by giving them jobs. Again that is just one aspect in their production process. To us, it makes sound business practice that they do what they do best and get other people who have had far better experience at an aspect of production than them. It makes for a sound product and they still achieve their goals of being a sustainable business enterprise, involving their community and being very environmentally friendly.
One thing important in establishing a business is you have an expertise in something - not necessarily on every aspect of the business, but important aspects of the business. As it takes time and practice to be an expert on anything, sometimes it makes a better product to outsource a portion of your business to someone who has expertise on a specific aspect that you do not necessarily have an expertise on. This was why one of our borrowers decided on outsourcing a particular aspect of their production.
FINCA in Uganda (when I was there in 2003) take some 48% in interests for micro-loans. Because of this most of the loans are given/taken to/by vendors who can make a quick turnover in 1 or 2 days. So farming is out of question.
I am thinking of charging 5% (?) for the rabbit meat project. Payback is about 2 years.
What interest rate do you have ?
Do you have any guidelines for interest rates for different types of businesses ?
FINCA in Uganda (when I was there in 2003) take some 48% in interests for micro-loans. Because of this most of the loans are given/taken to/by vendors who can make a quick turnover in 1 or 2 days. So farming is out of question.
I am thinking of charging 5% (?) for the rabbit meat project. Payback is about 2 years.
What interest rate do you have ?
Do you have any guidelines for interest rates for different types of businesses ?
I think that this is very interesting work you are doing with your young people in the Philipines. Building financial management skills is one of the growing issues that we would like to address for the young men and boys in our program in Washington, DC, Life Pieces To Masterpieces, Inc., LPTM (Go to www.lifepieces.org for more detailed info).
We provide weekly stipends to those LPTM Senior Apprentices who serve as Youth Mentors in our program ( young men who have been with us anywhere from 3-9 years and beyond). The stipends our guys receive are usually exhausted over one weekend. We find that it is not because they are being your average youth buying whatever. Many are having to take care of very basic needs, food for themselves, siblings and mothers; clothing; transport; washing clothes , etc. We instituted the stipends system for our older apprentices/youth mentors because we are clear that many boys in our area are drawn into the "underground economy" (drug sales, etc.) because when they reach 13, sometimes even 11 years of age, many are driven to the streets to serve as providers for their households.
I am studying work done by Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Dr. Muhammad Yunus and actually had an opportunity to hear him speak at a book signing in Washington, DC. I am hoping to learn from this research and build relationships with innovators such as yourself to create a plan to help our apprentices gain a deeper knowledge of fiscal management, investment and so forth.
We have a Resource Development Team and a few partners who are joining us in examining how we can benefit from the tourist economy here in DC through our microenterprise. We want LPTM art and artifacts to be like "gumbo" is to New Orleans, "Ya can't leave without it!". lol The "BIG IDEA" is that our Apprentices will be able to learn entrepreneurship, possibly receive loans to develop LPTM products/services. I would love to share ideas.
If you will give me ideas, I will gladly give you my contact details here in the US.
Just to let you know, I started out teaching young people how to set up businesses. I'm not one to promote giving young people money without any skills on how to handle it. In the average daily life in the Philippines, you can see how people - not just youth - seem to exhaust their hard earned resources. Thus, when we created YouthWorks, we were adamant at not only providing resources to youth, but more importantly teaching them how to use these resources in order to sustain themselves and help their family in the long run.
There may be a need to look into both capacity-building training and leadership training needed by your Senior Apprentices. I will be glad to share ideas on that and would love to know more about your programs.
I like the support provided via y-SHOP to your borrowers:
>The online marketplace is targeted to run smoothly by the
>end of 2008 with borrowers selling their goods and services
>locally and in the global market.
Is this site available now ?
CVVC intends to set up a micro-loan fund and our own "market place" site (copying your y-SHOP) would provide the support that our future borrowers would also need.
My intention is to start with rabbit meat production since I have funding to organise a training course where rabbit production is one of the activities. After the course, a trainee/organization will get funding to start a small scale rabbit farm that can produce 5 kg of dressed met per week. (that's why I was interested to know if you have funded or know any rabbit meat production activity in the Philippines.
I would suggest that you look at the feasibility and sustainability aspect of whatever business you want to venture into including the process - not just the funding sources. Funding will always be there if your business plan looks sustainable. I have seen many microfinance institutions in Kenya when I was there. As far as creating a y-SHOP, look at your market first and see whether it is feasible. Internet access is very expensive in Kenya there are very few cafes that provide it and I was lucky enough to find one, but then I had my laptop with me when I was there. Your target market may not have such an easy access to computers nor internet connection making any sort of y-SHOP impossible.
>I have seen many microfinance institutions in Kenya when I was there.
>As far as creating a y-SHOP, look at your market first and see whether
>it is feasible. Internet access is very expensive in Kenya there are very
>few cafes that provide it and I was lucky enough to find one,
thanks for your comments.
In downtown Nairobi, there are lots of cyber cafes. Seems like there are too many now. Most users are going for their emails. The charge is usually 1 KE shillings per minute or about 1 US$ per hr.
It is probably true that restaurants may not yet hooked into the Internet to check or make order their supplies. CVVC will have its website and we will make our information available even if we dont get orders for the rabbit meat. Our start up target of consumers will be the 200 offenders who are on probation and are living in the rehabilitation centres. They get meat once a week.
Comments
Hi Audrey, Its great to see your entry in the competition! I have a few questions: What are the criteria that you use to determine which youth you give loans to? Also, you mention that you look at the repayment rate and the late payment rate to gauge your impact. What are these rates? Do most people repay their loans? Lastly, can you give some examples of the projects that youth have created with the money from YouthWorks loans?
Thanks!
Dana Frasz
Changemakers
Hi Dana!
The criteria we use is very lose. We evaluate the business plans submitted by borrowers. We have a business plan format in question form that most of our borrowers use. This makes it easy for them who may or may not have finished elementary to write a business plan. We are looking at the feasibility of their idea, not so much on whether they can write a plan good enough for business school.
As of the moment, we have a 14% late payment rate and 100% repayment rate. And so yes, I can definitely say that most people pay their loans.
I can't exactly give the names of the people we've helped since they are still minors, but one group of boys have created bags made from recycled tarpaulin. We use these tarpaulins for printing ads for billboards in Manila and also printing campaign posters during the last elections. Tarpaulin in the U.S., as I am told, is used to cover the baseball field. They won another international social entrepreneurship award and have exported to Europe and they also have buyers in California. Some local businesses have followed their lead. We've also helped a group of high school students who have made organic fertilizer. They are now looking at exporting to Japan and Europe. Their municipality has declared itself as the first organic municipality in the Philippines. We have managed to help them bring about an eco-tourism plan in their community and the setting up of an Institute for Organic Farming. All in all, our borrowers have provided more than 1,300 jobs.
Kamusta Audrey
could not find your "business plan format in question form" at http://www.youthmicrofinance.com !
pls send url to source, thanks.
Have you financed a project on rabbit farming ? I am interested in this.
Q: after approval of micro-loan, do you make a spot check on funded activities ?
regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940
We have not financed any project on rabbit farming because we have never received any such business plans. Besides, I am not entirely sure how sustainable it is since rabbits are mostly seen in pet shops and very few people have rabbits as pets.
Sorry.... I forgot to indicate that rabbits are for meat production and skins (in Kenya).
regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940
>We've also helped a group of high school students who
>have made organic fertilizer. They are now looking at
>exporting to Japan and Europe.
What is so special about this organic fertilizer ?
Is it a chemical mix or recycled nutrients from organic resources ?
regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940
In anything produced organically, chemical fertilizer or any chemical mix is not included. Organic farming does not allow the use of chemicals. From the little I know of it, it uses minerals form the soil. I do know that because of the chemical fertilizers, there have been deficiencies in the topsoil's minerals. Organic farmers and slowly trying to "give back life" to the soil again.
There is nothing special about the organic fertilizer, but the fact that there is no chemicals used and it takes its minerals from the soil. The end product being when you eat organically grown product, you are not digesting chemicals that harm your body. Again I know very little about organic farming, but what stands out was this explanation: remember when you were taking biology in high school and had to dissect a frog? You had to put chemicals in order to keep the frog alive, but not moving. You were freezing the frog while it was still alive. Well, as far as I know some chemical fertilizers, uses chemicals present in rate poison and those in freezing the frog before you dissect it for biology. So if you were to eat something that was sprayed with such chemicals, you are in turn freezing your body with the same chemicals you would freeze the frog while you are alive (much like the frog) or poisoning your body (much like the rat).
>.....we've helped .....minors
>.....one group of boys have created bags made from recycled tarpaulin.
>We use these tarpaulins for printing ads for billboards in Manila
>and also printing campaign posters during the last elections.
how do your boys join smaller pieces of tarpauline to make a larger piece ?
Can these be used as roofing materials ?
regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940
to tell you honestly, i cannot disclose how they make their product because that is up to them. I do know it, but they may not be very hapy with me disclosing it. In essence they get a bug used tarpaulin and try to make as many bags of different sizes and style as they can from it.
And yes, tarpaulin can be used as roofing material. However, there are several pros and cons in producing a roof instead of bags out of it and you have to look at how sustainable a business can be in producing bags as opposed to producing roof out of the material.
>All in all, our borrowers have provided more than 1,300 jobs.
how this data is estimated ?
I am very interested to know how your micro-loans have helped provide jobs.
Could you provide on success story with some info on incomes.
thanks
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940
We have people visit the area where we provide the microfinance. We talk to our borrowers and members of their community. I have personally conducted trainings, mentored and monitored some borrowers in and these numbers were taken based on those. In some cases, we have young people we've mentored who have outsourced a portion of their production to another organization that provides employment to more than 300 retrenched (people who ahve been let go from their jobs) from being overseas workers.
>.......outsourced a portion of their production to another organization
>that provides employment to more than 300 retrenched .....overseas workers.
an just curious what this product is since I would not anticipate a microfinance project to outsource production to another organization.
regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940
YouthWorks provides microfinance and the y-SHOP. We also provide mentorship and a network through the network I've been able to build over the years through my other non-profit. We do not directly manufacture anything. Since we do not manufacture anything, we do not outsource manufacturing.
Our borrowers are the ones who establishes their business and we merely evaluate it, provide microfinance on businesses that are sustainable and mentorship and network to our borrowers. In this instance, our borrowers decided, since they do not have a particular expertise on one aspect of their production process, to outsource that aspect to another organization whose aim is to provide employment to the unemployed. In doing so, they are employing more than 300 unemployed workers by giving them jobs. Again that is just one aspect in their production process. To us, it makes sound business practice that they do what they do best and get other people who have had far better experience at an aspect of production than them. It makes for a sound product and they still achieve their goals of being a sustainable business enterprise, involving their community and being very environmentally friendly.
One thing important in establishing a business is you have an expertise in something - not necessarily on every aspect of the business, but important aspects of the business. As it takes time and practice to be an expert on anything, sometimes it makes a better product to outsource a portion of your business to someone who has expertise on a specific aspect that you do not necessarily have an expertise on. This was why one of our borrowers decided on outsourcing a particular aspect of their production.
thanks again for the info in your response.
FINCA in Uganda (when I was there in 2003) take some 48% in interests for micro-loans. Because of this most of the loans are given/taken to/by vendors who can make a quick turnover in 1 or 2 days. So farming is out of question.
I am thinking of charging 5% (?) for the rabbit meat project. Payback is about 2 years.
What interest rate do you have ?
Do you have any guidelines for interest rates for different types of businesses ?
regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940
thanks again for the info in your response.
FINCA in Uganda (when I was there in 2003) take some 48% in interests for micro-loans. Because of this most of the loans are given/taken to/by vendors who can make a quick turnover in 1 or 2 days. So farming is out of question.
I am thinking of charging 5% (?) for the rabbit meat project. Payback is about 2 years.
What interest rate do you have ?
Do you have any guidelines for interest rates for different types of businesses ?
regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940
Hi Audrey!
I think that this is very interesting work you are doing with your young people in the Philipines. Building financial management skills is one of the growing issues that we would like to address for the young men and boys in our program in Washington, DC, Life Pieces To Masterpieces, Inc., LPTM (Go to www.lifepieces.org for more detailed info).
We provide weekly stipends to those LPTM Senior Apprentices who serve as Youth Mentors in our program ( young men who have been with us anywhere from 3-9 years and beyond). The stipends our guys receive are usually exhausted over one weekend. We find that it is not because they are being your average youth buying whatever. Many are having to take care of very basic needs, food for themselves, siblings and mothers; clothing; transport; washing clothes , etc. We instituted the stipends system for our older apprentices/youth mentors because we are clear that many boys in our area are drawn into the "underground economy" (drug sales, etc.) because when they reach 13, sometimes even 11 years of age, many are driven to the streets to serve as providers for their households.
I am studying work done by Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Dr. Muhammad Yunus and actually had an opportunity to hear him speak at a book signing in Washington, DC. I am hoping to learn from this research and build relationships with innovators such as yourself to create a plan to help our apprentices gain a deeper knowledge of fiscal management, investment and so forth.
We have a Resource Development Team and a few partners who are joining us in examining how we can benefit from the tourist economy here in DC through our microenterprise. We want LPTM art and artifacts to be like "gumbo" is to New Orleans, "Ya can't leave without it!". lol The "BIG IDEA" is that our Apprentices will be able to learn entrepreneurship, possibly receive loans to develop LPTM products/services. I would love to share ideas.
Of course we can become buddies!
If you will give me ideas, I will gladly give you my contact details here in the US.
Just to let you know, I started out teaching young people how to set up businesses. I'm not one to promote giving young people money without any skills on how to handle it. In the average daily life in the Philippines, you can see how people - not just youth - seem to exhaust their hard earned resources. Thus, when we created YouthWorks, we were adamant at not only providing resources to youth, but more importantly teaching them how to use these resources in order to sustain themselves and help their family in the long run.
There may be a need to look into both capacity-building training and leadership training needed by your Senior Apprentices. I will be glad to share ideas on that and would love to know more about your programs.
I like the support provided via y-SHOP to your borrowers:
>The online marketplace is targeted to run smoothly by the
>end of 2008 with borrowers selling their goods and services
>locally and in the global market.
Is this site available now ?
CVVC intends to set up a micro-loan fund and our own "market place" site (copying your y-SHOP) would provide the support that our future borrowers would also need.
My intention is to start with rabbit meat production since I have funding to organise a training course where rabbit production is one of the activities. After the course, a trainee/organization will get funding to start a small scale rabbit farm that can produce 5 kg of dressed met per week. (that's why I was interested to know if you have funded or know any rabbit meat production activity in the Philippines.
regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940
I would suggest that you look at the feasibility and sustainability aspect of whatever business you want to venture into including the process - not just the funding sources. Funding will always be there if your business plan looks sustainable. I have seen many microfinance institutions in Kenya when I was there. As far as creating a y-SHOP, look at your market first and see whether it is feasible. Internet access is very expensive in Kenya there are very few cafes that provide it and I was lucky enough to find one, but then I had my laptop with me when I was there. Your target market may not have such an easy access to computers nor internet connection making any sort of y-SHOP impossible.
>I have seen many microfinance institutions in Kenya when I was there.
>As far as creating a y-SHOP, look at your market first and see whether
>it is feasible. Internet access is very expensive in Kenya there are very
>few cafes that provide it and I was lucky enough to find one,
thanks for your comments.
In downtown Nairobi, there are lots of cyber cafes. Seems like there are too many now. Most users are going for their emails. The charge is usually 1 KE shillings per minute or about 1 US$ per hr.
It is probably true that restaurants may not yet hooked into the Internet to check or make order their supplies. CVVC will have its website and we will make our information available even if we dont get orders for the rabbit meat. Our start up target of consumers will be the 200 offenders who are on probation and are living in the rehabilitation centres. They get meat once a week.
regards
jacky foo
Children's Village and Vocational Centre (CVVC), Kenya
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/node/3940
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