Helping vulnerable people become entrepreneurs

Dear Difteur-ses,

The security crisis in Burkina Faso has forced more than 2 million people to flee their region.

In Ouagadougou, many are hosted in precarious conditions by entrepreneurial families accompanied by YIKRI, the Burkinabe social microfinance association created by Entrepreneurs du Monde.

Faced with this urgent need, YIKRI is launching an ambitious project. Starting this week, 50 women will embark on a 3-year program to help them escape extreme poverty in the long term. A total of 200 women will benefit from this full and personalized support.

In the first phase, each woman will receive food products and a basic kit (stove, solar lamp, hygiene products), free access to a mutual health insurance scheme and help with administrative formalities. Some will also join a literacy program.

In a second phase, the women will be trained to create an income-generating activity: catering, food processing, craft production... They will receive equipment to get started, tailored training and support in finding outlets.

This project is based on a collective mobilization: YIKRI, Entrepreneurs du Monde, TOND LAAFI (health coverage), Nafa Naana (energy equipment), SAMU Social Burkina Faso (psychosocial follow-up), with the support of the French Development Agency, the City of Lyon, and the L'Oréal Women's Fund.

These players share the same objectives: to get internally displaced people out of their extremely precarious situation in the short term, and to provide them with long-term support in their economic insertion and integration into their host community.

Thank you for enabling us to help them!

Dear Difteur-ses,

Our Anh Chi Em (ACE) program supports small-scale farmers and herders in northwestern Vietnam. Myriam Carbonare, our vice-president, and Chloé Mendiondo, agronomist, visited the team and met beneficiaries. An opportunity to share news from the field!

Services tailored to local issues

ACE is based in the country's poorest province. The population, made up of ethnic minorities, has few resources and lives off agriculture and livestock. ACE gives these micro-entrepreneurs, 90% of whom are women, the boost they need to develop their business with microcredit and savings services, advice and training.

Great proximity between the team and beneficiaries

ACE relies on an invested team of 35 employees who regularly visit beneficiaries to ensure that the program is meeting their needs.

Women who are hard-working and ambitious

The beneficiaries combine a crop production activity with animal husbandry. Despite the ups and downs they forge ahead, driven by the desire to offer their children a better future.

Current challenges

Faced with inflation, loan amounts have been revised upwards in 2 of ACE's 4 branches. In addition, beneficiaries are experiencing the impact of climate change and are in demand of training to adapt.

A key issue: finding more commercial outlets for beneficiaries in the weaving and coffee sectors. To this end, the team will strengthen value chains by integrating environmentally-friendly techniques.

Dear Difteur-ses,

Any initiative that wants to solve a problem needs to be able to measure the impact of its actions. Want to know how we do it? We'll take you behind the scenes!

In every social microfinance program, data is collected over several loan cycles.

Every other time, when applying for a loan, beneficiaries fill in a form about their living conditions, income, children's schooling and so on.

This data enables us to target the most vulnerable and assess the real impact of our programs.

As an example, among the micro-entrepreneurs who joined Fansoto in Senegal in 2024, 90% had never had access to formal credit and 45% were illiterate.

To go further, in-depth surveys are conducted every 2-3 years. They combine a quantitative and qualitative approach, via focus groups.

These surveys reveal that, over time, the perception of positive changes increases. By way of example, of the 202 beneficiaries of our Wakili program in Guinea surveyed in 2024, 85% felt better equipped to cope with life's ups and downs.

We look forward to unveiling our 2024 impact report soon, synthesizing the results of all our surveys!

A grand merci to you for your support!

Dear difteur-ses,

For 26 years, Entrepreneurs du Monde has been committed to empowering women in precarious situations.

On the occasion of March 8, we decided to put these women in the spotlight through testimonials, of which here are a few excerpts:

"I left my village to go and work in Rangoon at the age of 14, in a textile factory where I earned a pittance. With the support of SOO, I became a savvy multi-entrepreneur. My 2 children no longer lack anything, I can even have my autistic son taken into a specialized center."

"Here women suffer in silence. I offer them a confidential space to express what they're going through and then support them until their problem is resolved. We also do a lot of awareness-raising and have facilitated their enrolment in universal health coverage."

"Here, women are badly considered, especially when they don't have a job. I'm proud to change that at EMERGENCE: we make these women recognized professionals, hired and paid on the basis of a fair contract.

A great thank you to you for helping these women to undertake!

Dear donors,

Menstrual precariousness affects nearly 500 million people worldwide.

Whoever says lack of access to menstrual protection, sanitary facilities and information, says impact on girls' school attendance and vulnerable women's ability to successfully undertake business.

In 2024, Entrepreneurs du Monde launched the Miapé Menstrual Dignity project to combat this problem in Togo and Sierra Leone. 🌍

In Togo, the theme will be included in the training of micro-entrepreneurs supported by Entrepreneurs du Monde. Awareness-raising activities will also be carried out in schools, and advocacy actions will be deployed with local authorities.

In Togo, the team is helping the Auréole Monde enterprise to scale up. A new team has been set up, production will accelerate, and partners have been identified for marketing.

40% of Togolese schools have no latrines and 77% of Sierra Leonean schools have no access to water; the challenge is significant! This action will be carried out with the NGO SEVES.

By 2026, 35,000 women will have access to quality products and 36,000 people will have been made aware of the issue. A social enterprise incubation model for menstrual protection production will also be formalized.

The whole team is mobilized!

Cher difteur,

Liberia, located in West Africa, is ranked among the five most impoverished nations. 84% of its population lives on less than 1.25 USD per day and ¾ of its food is imported.

In this context, Entrepreneurs du Monde has launched, in partnership with the AFD (Agence Française de Développement), a social microfinance program 100% dedicated to rural populations living near protected areas. It is aimed at farmers, the vast majority of whom are women, who lack resources and are threatened by extreme weather events.

The aim: to help them increase their agricultural yields and diversify their production with agro-ecological practices, to improve their standard of living while preserving the environment. A specialized local team provides local support with several services: loans, a savings account, training, agricultural advice focusing on nutrition.

Other services are envisaged in a second phase, such as access to seeds and clean cooking equipment.

This offer has been eagerly awaited, and the team has made good progress since May 2024. Elili, a locally-registered social enterprise, has been created and two local branches set up. The first 44 groups of farmers have already undergone several training courses; they have made their first savings deposits and have just received their first loans.

In 2023, we worked for the essentials: reducing poverty , helping the most vulnerable to cope with climate change, supporting women's emancipation.

Together, we have supported :

In 2024, thanks to your support, we will be able to accompany more and better vulnerable people in entrepreneurship!
Find out in video the testimonies of several women and men supported by Fansoto, the Entrepreneurs du Monde program in Senegal!