Program Expansion

2024

2024 was highlighted by the expansion of technology to our rural loan programs. When WMI made its first loans in Buyobo in January 2008, there was no reliable electricity in the village, so using modern technology wasn't even a consideration. As the years went by, we introduced mobile phones, computers, printers, modems, and Wi-Fi access across our loan hub offices. As mobile phones became popular, mobile money providers slowly made their way into everyday village life and thus digital payment platforms were introduced into rural communities. We provided laptops to our western Uganda sub-hubs, enabling them to integrate the their accounting data into WMI's western H.Q.'s main loan record-keeping system, not only reducing the need for travel but providing our staff with accurate and up to date information on the sub-hubs.

This year our Lewa, Kenya program went completely digital for loan disbursements and repayments. While Uganda is still more reliant on cash to conduct transactions, we are rapidly moving to migrate loan repayments to a digital mobile money platform in our two Uganda hubs in 2025. Training and community meetings will help reduce customer fear and resistance to new technology.

Finally, agency banking is providing the Buyobo community with local banking access with the opening of our new building. Residents are able to access their bank accounts remotely, make deposits, get paid, and transfer money. Because so much cash changes hands at our headquarters building now, it has reduced our need to travel into town with large deposits or arrange for an armored security van to pick them up. And we receive a tiny fee for every transaction, including our own, which has resulted in a small ancillary income stream for the loan program.

We also expanded programmatically in all of our programs, adding new loan groups to both existing and new villages in all our loan hubs. In southwestern Uganda we again expanded to provide services to multiple villages in this remote and underserved region. Our leadership team was approached by the Kanyangeya Allied Market Entrepreneurs Association (KAMEA) that operates about 3 kilometers from the heart of Kasese town. KAMEA has 60 members made up of underserved/vulnerable women, unemployed young mothers and youth. They include market vendors, hairdressers, tailors, widows in handcrafts and women in agriculture related activities who have been operating a small savings and loan scheme. In our Buyobo hub we expanded with four new groups in Zesui. In Kenya, our newest program in Eldoret added four new groups in Kabuson village. And, in Tanzania, we added loan groups to the Nainokanoka, Alailelai, Naiyobi, Esilalei and Ngoile/Olbalbal areas.

2023

2023 was an exciting year that marked WMI President Robyn Nietert's first return to WMI loan hubs after the pandemic. Despite the challenges of the pandemic and price increases due to global conflicts, the annual field visit showed a continued demand for WMI loans as well as the enduring success of past borrowers' businesses. College interns also returned to Buyobo for the first time since COVID, conducting on-site interviews and data analysis.

The new WMI headquarters broke ground in January and was completed in October. Local contractor Sam Wesomoyo overcame torrential roads, mud-slick roads and other adversity to construct the largest non-governmental building in the district!

A second cohort was added to WMI's newest loan hub in El Doret, Kenya and operations were expanded in the Tanzania National Conservation Area. Maasai women were trained and received first loans as a part of expansion. WMI provided The Samburu Women in Northern Kenya, called the "Milk Mamas," who sell goat milk to the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary, with business training in marketing, record-keeping and savings, sponsored by the Sarara Foundation.

WMI also partnered with Sun24 to launch the elephant grass briquette project, teaching borrowers how to grow elephant grass and compress it into fuel briquettes. Charcoal is commonly used for cooking but is unsustainable, causes serious health issues, and is expensive to purchase - biomass briquettes are much safer to burn and inexpensive to make.

This year WMI lost a loyal supporter and outstanding local leader, senior village elder, Nelson Gutaka Mafabi. Nelson was passionate about improving the living conditions for families in Buyobo. He championed the WMI loan program and helped pave the way for it to be embraced by the local community.

2022

2022 marked the 15th anniversary of WMI operations in East Africa. Over the years, WMI has grown tremendously, funding loans to over 25,000 rural women and raising over $3,000,000.

Our flagship WMI-funded loan hub in Buyobo, Uganda, (where the program started) was approved to offer agency banking services from its village loan program office, allowing easier access to financial services for the entire community. Customers who live in the rural area can now use these facilities to access their bank accounts.

WMI funded a new women's agricultural loan program, which trains women to grow maize and grind it into flour, which is more profitable than selling unprocessed maize. Women raise additional crops such as beans and cabbage. Loans payments are tailored to the farming calendar. The first participants repaid their loans on time and reported it was easier to pay school fees for children, improve household living conditions, and increase savings with the profit from their sale of maize flour.

2021

2021 found the WMI-funded loan programs continuing to produce successful results in the aftermath of the pandemic. Generous grants allowed WMI to restore capital losses incurred by partners in 2020 and also restructure the loans of women most affected by the pandemic lockdowns. In this year alone, 9,500 loans totaling $1,100,000 were provided and over 2,500 new borrowers were added to the loan programs.

Construction of meeting pavilions and offices, with the land purchased by village women, took place in Kyibboko and Kaama Border, Uganda. A large office building was also constructed in Karatu, Tanzania for the loan hub there and solar power was added to multiple existing meeting pavilions, benefiting village members without electricity at home.

The Tanzania loan program expanded this year by following in the footsteps of the Uganda loan program and adding a jumbo-loan component for successful borrowers and graduates of WMI's two-year basic training program. These larger loans help borrowers continue ot grow their rural businesses.

2020

2020 was a difficult year for the ladies' businesses. Loan hub staff provided outstanding leadership in guiding the loan program through the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although the virus spread slower than anticipated, the lockdowns and associated violence had a disproportional economic impact on the rural areas in which WMI funded loan programs operate. Many borrowers' businesses slowed or even shut down temporarily.

Plans for 2020 were tossed out the window as we quickly pivoted to respond to the pandemic. We refocused our fundraising to provide personal protective equipment (PPE) to loan hubs including: infrared thermometers, masks, hand sanitizer and foot pedal-operated hand-washing stations for the heavily used locations. We funded the distribution of emergency food and aid packages to local orphans as well as to communities in distress.

We then turned our efforts to helping borrowers with severe damage to their businesses by restructuring to provide access to working capital to replace lost inventory, plant new crops, or acquire depleted raw materials to start-up operations again. In some cases, the situation was so egregious (watchmen stealing women's entire bean, onion, or tomato harvest) that loan forgiveness was the best alternative.

Through a foundation grant and other donations, WMI created a fund to cover loan losses. After halting loan issuance for six months, our loan hub partners began issuing loans again in October 2020. Although COVID infection rates were again rising, we believed it was critically imperative that we continue to support the issuance of loans to women on the edge of poverty to support their businesses. Without that, we are certain that the borrowers and their families would have spiraled downward into the poverty we have worked so hard to alleviate for more than a decade.

2019

2019 advanced WMI's goal of supporting the loan hub partners through proper infrastructure. WMI funded construction of the seventh sub-hub meeting pavilion in the Buyobo area, including latrines (a very big plus for village-level infrastructure). The women of Mutufu purchased the land and WMI built an office/meeting pavilion and three-stance latrine. The buildings are used for loan collection and training activities, and also provide a venue for village level meetings.

At the headquarters loan program hub in Buyobo, we funded the introduction of newly developed custom software, created specifically for the WMI loan program platform, to automate the bank reconciliation process. It has saved the loan hub staff countless hours of very tedious bookkeeping and improved the overall operating efficiency of the loan program.

2018

2018 was a milestone year - WMI hit two million dollars in total funds raised to support the microfinance loan programs operated by our local partners: a major accomplishment for an organization with no regular paid staff! Of this amount, 72% has funded the revolving loan funds and borrower training, 27% has been directed to building infrastructure such as meeting facilities, offices, and 1% has gone to administrative training and special projects.

This year WMI added 3,500 new borrowers, bringing the total number of borrowers who received loans since 2008 to over 17,000. Each loan positively impacts at least 20 people, including nuclear and extended family members, thus WMI has been able to reach over 340,000 individuals and improve their household living conditions and lives.

2017

2017 saw the addition of two new sub-hub pavilions in Sironko District, Uganda - one in Zesui and one in Busia. Both feature a separate three stand latrine building - part of WMI's commitment to environmentally sound development.

The loan program in Lewa, Kenya increased loan amounts to meet the capital needs of borrowers' expanding businesses. WMI introduced a pilot project to experiment with Jumbo Loans of up to $1,000 for the most successful graduates of WMI's basic two-year Loan Program.

2016

2016 was highlighted by the complete renovation and expansion of the Buyobo water system. It is providing clean water to over 5,000 residents, as well as customers at the new shops, students at Buyobo Primary School, and visitors to WMI's headquarters building. The water system had deteriorated so badly it was impacting all businesses and households in the community and impeding women's ability to earn an income.

The project was jointly funded by the Buyobo Women's Association, WMI and Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda, MD. The region's Chief Water Engineer, Alex Gidudu, has certified that it is one of the few water systems in all of Sironko District where the community can feel confident drinking the water directly from the taps without treatment.

WMI's new 500-seat meeting pavilion in Buyobo was dedicated in January 2016. The pavilion is solar powered and has an office for loan collection and a storage room. We added toilets, a kitchen, and a retaining wall to keep soil intact during rainy season. It is also a source of rental income for the program.

2015

2015 ushered in the expansion of the loan program operations to a third location in Tanzania with the Maasai women in Nainokankoka, through a partnership with Weston Turville Wells for Tanzania, a UK-based NGO. WMI had previously worked with WTWT on financial literacy training for local Maasai women and consulted to them on their microfinance program, which at the time did not meet WMI's women-based program model. Based on WTWT's loan repayment experience, in 2015 WTWT decided to limit their program to women borrowers and WMI brought training and operations expertise to the table to help more local women launch businesses. WMI President, Robyn Nietert, traveled to Tanzania to meet the new loan groups there.

WMI also expanded its financial literacy training program for girls in Kabale, similar to the one we are operating in Buyobo, through a grant to Rukundo International, one of our Kabale program partners.

2014

2014 was an expansion year for staff at our local partner offices - Olive Wolimbwa and her team of 20 at the Buyobo Women's Association (BWA) provide leadership and supervision for all of the loan hubs and are breaking new ground in developing village-level microfinance program guidelines. They are bringing a high level of control and oversight to rural operations. This year they prepared an end-of-year profit/loss statement and balance sheet for headquarter loan hub operations. This gave the ladies enormous insight into program operating efficiency and provided a valuable planning tool for future growth. It sparked discussions on how to cut cost, consolidate functions and improve operations.

Over 50 hub administrators and local coordinators from our programs throughout East Africa travelled to Buyobo to attend a series of week-long training sessions in how to operate the loan program, train new borrowers, and improve record keeping. The women were also able to share experiences and knowledge with their sister hubs.

The first loans were issued in 2008 and the first 120 women graduated from the loan program in 2010. In 2014, we decided to go back and see what had happened to the borrowers from 2008 and their businesses. We conducted a survey that found that 95% of businesses are still in operation! View Report

2013

2013 doubled the loan program's size. New village hub locations in Ngarendare, Kenya, in conjunction with the Naibala Self Help Group, and Tloma, Tanzania was added under the leadership of the Tloma Community Organization, a sister program to the Alailelai, Tanzania. program. A meeting pavilion was constructed in Buteza, Uganda to accommodate the concentration of borrowers there.

This year WMI pioneered a weekly after-school Girls Entrepreneurship program for 12-15 year old girls within Buyobo. The program utilizes participatory games and activities to introduce concepts about leadership, self-concept, social entrepreneurship, and business development.

2012

2012 completed WMI's fifth full year of operations. It was a year of many accomplishments as the loan program extended to new loan hubs in Tanzania and Kenya. WMI now funds local microfinance loan and training program in the three main countries in East Africa. A new position of Resource Fellow was added in Buyobo and is filled each year by a college graduate with community development skills to assist our local partner's staff in building human capacity in the villages where the loan program operates.

2011

2011 flooded Buyobo, Uganda with American teen-agers as our local partner, the Buyobo Women's Association (formerly the Bulambuli Widow's Association), hosted eight High School students, three college graduates and one adult intern who traveled to Buyobo during the summer. They were supervised by our two on-site Project Director's from the US who are helping build program capacity. Their stays ranged over 2 months and they contributed a multitude of talents to paint classrooms, update the Internet café, shoot video footage for a documentary film, automate loan records, train borrowers in advanced business skills, prepare a banking manual, as well as interview borrowers, local team leaders, and village elders to prepare a history of the region and the WMI loan program.

Human resource development continued as ten new trainers on our local partner's team went through the World Bank developed "Training-to-Train" program, increasing WMI's capacity to effectively train new borrowers. Olive Wolimbwa, our local partner Chairlady, and her team traveled by bus from eastern Uganda to central Tanzania to complete the preliminary site work to launch a new hub with Maasai women in Alailelai. Advanced business planning classes for experienced borrowers in Buyobo were arranged through FinAfrica in Kampala;

2010

2010 graduated some of the most experienced borrowers in the loan program into transition loans with PostBank. These ladies received loans directly from the bank and dealt directly with bank officers. It was a major step forward for these female village entrepreneurs. Their repaid loans were recycled by our village loan program partner and reissued as new loans to first time borrowers.

WMI introduced a summer high school intern program as 14 students from Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, MD, traveled to Buyobo, where they set up an Internet café and taught computer skills to women and children in the village. Summer interns in Bethesda again analyzed the borrower data collected the previous year and developed Fact Books and research papers on how WMI loans are improving lives for impoverished families. Two recent college post-graduates, Montana Stevenson and Ainsley Morris, started a 10-month stay as Project Directors in Buyobo to help guide program expansion, develop borrower tools, and prepare training materials.

2009

2009 saw WMI pass $100,000 in funds raised. A very generous grant funded construction of a shared community building to provide offices for the WMI loan program operations and our local partner's staff, as well as meeting space for borrower support groups. Over 200 initial and 320 follow-up loans were dispersed with no late payments.

Summer interns in Bethesda analyzed borrower data collected through regular surveys and prepared the first WMI Fact Book, documenting the extensive impact of the loan program in improving household living standards.

2008

2008 was barely half over when the loan program began it first expansion, just six months after its launch. In July 2008, WMI Advisory board member Robert Israelite and WMI summer intern Hart Wood traveled to Buyobo to hold a graduation ceremony for the first group of borrowers, who made their final payment on their six-month term loans in July. WMI grants funded follow-up loans to these borrowers and new loans were issued to 40 new rural women borrowers. In October 2008, the final 40 loans of the year were issued, with 40 more women added to the waiting list for 2009. Olive Wolimbwa (Chairlady) and her team at the Bulambuli Widow's Association managed the loan program on the ground, learning as they went along. Ron Cordes of San Francisco, whose family foundation provided a grant to cover a 5-year salary for Olive, traveled to Buyobo and met with the borrowers. It was a thrilling experience for the women of Buyobo.