Jotsna Begum of Bangladesh planned to take her own life. She didn’t know what to do. With a husband addicted to drugs and without marketable skills, she had no way to alleviate the family’s poverty. No one would hire her.
When World Concern’s microlending* staff met Jotsna, she had no food for her children. But, as field workers from World Concern began working intensively with Jotsna and her family extending her a microloan of $75, a transformation began.
Soon, Jotsna embarked on business classes through World Concern’s ‘Biblical Values in the Marketplace’ program. She used the microloan to start her own business selling handmade saris door-to-door, and was soon able to care for her family.
She paid back the $75 and eventually saved enough money to open her own small shop! Now Jotsna, whom no one would hire, employs another woman. And she can afford to send her children—both of whom are excellent students—to secondary school.
Caring, motivated people like Kurt Campbell of Edmonds, Wash. provide resources that World Concern extends to vulnerable people. Kurt explains, “Microloans have been given primarily to women in third world countries where men make most of the decisions. Jotsna is empowered, maybe for the first time in her life, to make decisions that help her family.
“It’s not World Concern saying, ‘Here’s $75, and here’s how to spend it.’ It’s ‘Let us loan you money, and you go follow your dream—whatever you think is best for you and your family.’ And it’s not a handout—they pay it back. They feel really good about that.
“With ‘Biblical Values in the Marketplace,’ you’re teaching people to make ethical decisions in business, which may not always come naturally. They’re so used to having weighted scales in the marketplace that they don’t always know what’s right or wrong.
“This isn’t one time—like a month’s worth of food for a family—it’s empowering a human being to create income for their family; to educate children; to provide better health. A microloan transforms the entire family, which then has an opportunity to transform the community.
“Jesus often talks about serving the ‘least of these.’ And often when you think about women in a third world country, you really are dealing with ‘the least of these.’ They’re not high on the social scale—they’re often living hand-to-mouth. And it excites me that we have an opportunity, without going there, to be the hands and feet.”
* The process of extending small business loans to impoverished individuals with no collateral.
