 Poverty leaves millions of people around the world without adequate food, shelter, clean water, or medical care. Project Concern International (PCI) recognizes the inseparable link between poverty and health, as well as the crucial importance of providing income generating opportunities in the countries where we work.
PCI programs cover a broad spectrum of economic development programs on a national, regional, and international scale. These programs provide PCI beneficiaries with the education, skills, and access to capital they need to grow and increase their livelihood security.
Through programs like WORTH, PCI is breaking the mold of typical non-profit economic and finance programs by empowering Zambia women with an important tool: themselves. Through integrated training focused on literacy, community banking, and small business development, women who engage in WORTH discover they are the key to their own success. Through self-formed, community led groups, women learn how to manage, save, and loan money to each other with no outside assistance. Where most microfinance programs begin with external credit, the women of WORTH become their own, self-sufficient bankers and lenders.
In Malawi, PCI is laying a foundation for change that is long-lasting and effective for low-income and food insecure fish farmers. PCI is leading an innovative aquaculture program designed to significantly improve the production and commercialization of pond-raised fish by providing small scale, farmers with training, improved feeds, fish fingerlings, and access to credit, with the goal of increasing their production, incomes, and food security.
Through partnerships with governments, foundations, and the private supporters, PCI works with people in impoverished communities to help them become empowered and successful. PCI currently operates a wide range of successful economic empowerment programs in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Malawi, India, Zambia, Ethiopia, and Indonesia.
How Project Concern International is Making a Difference…
- In the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami, PCI instituted cash-for-work initiatives in both India and Indonesia. These activities have employed over 6,500 people in Banda Aceh and benefited a population of over 20,000 people.
- Project Concern International organized a group of over 1,300 women coffee farmers in Guatemala by providing them with small loans and training to establish and grow their businesses. Participants learned how to analyze market prices and develop marketing plans for their coffee, as well as gain new and better farming skills. These women had an astounding 100 percent repayment rate on their loans and their coffee beans were sold to international markets.
- Because of the income generated trough the WORTH program, 5,000 women in Zambia’s Chongwe District outside of Lusaka are now successfully caring for 11,500 children who have been orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS.
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