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Yehu Microfinance—Decreasing Poverty in Rural Kenya
What Is Yehu Microfinance?
Yehu Microfinance models itself after the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. It uses a group-based lending methodology and works exclusively in rural Kenya. Yehu offers savings and a variety of loan products to its rural poor clients. Community Credit Workers travel by foot, bicycle or motorbike to meet weekly with clients (80% women) out in the remote villages where members live.
Yehu truly takes financial services to the poorest of the poor who do not have any access to financial services. Its typical client makes under $1 per day, lives without electricity or running water, and has less than four years of formal education and is illiterate. Almost all its clients are subsistence farmers who depend upon the rainfall to live—when it rains, they survive, when there is drought, they starve. Yehu is not affiliated with any particular denomination.
- Number of Branches: 6
- Number of Employees: 40
- Number of Loans Given: 17,000
- Number of Clients (Members): 13,000
- Self-Sufficiency: 74%
- Repayment Rates: 88%
- Outstanding Loan Portfolio: $359,000 USD
Who Is the Typical Borrower?
- Avg. Age: 42 years old
- Years of Schooling: 3.7
- Gender: 80% Female
- Literacy: 54%
- Income: 97% make under $2 per day; 83% make under $1 per day
- Electricity in Home: 1.5%
- Access to Clean Water: 3.6%
- Pit Latrine: 80%
- Children enrolled in Elementary School: 95%
- Children enrolled in Middle School: 25%
- 9% support more than 6 dependents with their income
- 11% support a terminally-ill dependent
- 21.5% have dealt with a recent death in the household
How Can You Help?
All contributions are appreciated—financial or otherwise. Raising awareness by spreading the word is a huge help! The impact of your donation will be tremendous.
For financial donations, every little bit helps! For example, a $5,000 USD donation from the Mom It Forward and 12 for 12K partnership would equal 80 revolving loans. Furthermore…
- Loans are generally paid back in 6 months.
- After repayment, the same funds can then be loaned out to another 80 individuals.
- Over a 5-year period one $5,000 USD donation will create 800 loans.
- Your tax-deductible donation truly blesses lives in perpetuity.
To donate online, please visit yehu.org.
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