Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re more aware than ever of the critical role that essential businesses—and the entrepreneurs running them—play. Across the HOPE network, men and women use their businesses to provide necessary goods and services, and as they do, they not only provide for their own families but often become known as leaders in their church and community. Continue Reading…
Archives For Burundi
HOPE Intl
Apr 24 2020
HOPE Intl
Stories we love
Annie Rose Ansley
Nov 14 2019
Annie Rose Ansley
News
Over 2 billion people in the world live on $3.10 a day or less.
You’ve likely heard this stat, or something similar. But these statistics don’t tell the full story because $3.10 is just an average: Those living in poverty aren’t making that amount every day. Some days, they may earn $15, but most days, they’re more likely bringing in $0. Often operating their businesses in small communities and selling seasonal products or crops, these entrepreneurs cannot consistently rely on a certain amount of daily or even monthly income to cover expenses. Continue Reading…
Isaac Barnes
Oct 14 2019
Isaac Barnes
News
Dried apricot, raspberry, brown sugar. No, these aren’t candle scents; they’re the delicate flavors of specialty coffees sourced from the highlands of Burundi and Rwanda. In my very caffeinated opinion, coffees from these two hilly countries in East Africa are among the world’s most delicious, and yes, they even fight poverty. Continue Reading…
HOPE Intl
Oct 7 2019
HOPE Intl
Photos / Media Stories we love
At HOPE International, we have the joy of joining hardworking men and women as they glean the fruit of their labors—literally! From plantain farmers to greenhouse owners, see people rejoicing in this season of abundance. Continue Reading…
HOPE Intl
Oct 22 2018
HOPE Intl
News Spiritual Integration Stories we love
Header image: slum neighborhood of Asunción, Paraguay
In the 1990s, the World Bank interviewed more than 60,000 individuals living in low-income countries, asking one primary question: What is poverty?
When asked this question, Western audiences often respond with what those in poverty lack: food, money, clean water, etc. But the families interviewed by the World Bank described poverty in much more multidimensional terms, naming the lack of options, strained relationships, low self-esteem, and feelings of helplessness.
A HOPE staff member once asked a savings group in Rwanda the same question—how do you define poverty? Most of their descriptions framed their experience of poverty as emotional and relational: Continue Reading…
HOPE Intl
Oct 9 2018
HOPE Intl
Microfinance News
Farmers in rural, agricultural areas of Burundi face a number of challenges unique to their remote location, including limited access to educational opportunities and financial exclusion:
40 percent of Burundian adults living in rural areas qualify as “illiterate*”[1]
5.3 percent of Burundian farmers hold an account with a formal financial institution[2]
Yet it is precisely among underserved communities that Turame Community Finance, HOPE’s microfinance institution in Burundi, seeks to work. Clients living in rural villages hold over 90 percent of Turame’s current outstanding loans.
Unlike a traditional bank, however, Turame’s mission goes beyond financial transactions, offering biblically based business training to its clients, and even to those who do not hold an account.
But Turame had a challenge: how to share robust stewardship training with those who may not only be accessing financial services for the first time, but may also have limited reading skills. Continue Reading…
