Meet Zahara. Zahara owns a small home-based weaving business in Morocco. She sells her weavings in the market to townspeople who use in their marriage ceremonies and to visiting tourists. She raises her own sheep and uses their wool to prepare her thread for her and her daughter, who is also a weaver.Zahara is a client of Whole Planet Foundation’s microfinance partner INMAA in Morocco, where Whole Foods Market sources rosemary. Zahara is now on her sixth loan with INMAA, borrowing MAD 2,500 (USD $280) to build her weaving and livestock business. She’s currently using the profits from her business to build an additional room for her home.
All over the globe, in developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and also here in the United States opens in a new tab, Whole Planet Foundation helps entrepreneurial women, like Zahara and her daughter, lift themselves out of poverty by giving them access to microcredit.
It’s with your help that we’re able to do that! This year during Whole Planet Foundation’s 2013 Annual Prosperity Campaign, going on now through March 31st, we’re aiming to raise $5.7 million for microcredit. Because Whole Foods Market covers all of Whole Planet Foundation’s administrative costs, 100% of the money raised benefits the very poor living in communities that supply Whole Foods Market stores with products like coffee, tea, cacao, rice, tropical fruits and vegetables, spices, baskets and apparel. It’s our way of giving back to the people who live in these communities, and I hope you’ll join us.
There are many opportunities to get involved:
You can visit wholeplanetfoundation.org opens in a new tab and learn about the transformative power of microcredit, and then stay connected through our quarterly newsletter opens in a new tab, Facebook opens in a new tab and Twitter opens in a new tab.
You can download our Make Change, Not Waste™ opens in a new tab iPhone application that rewards you with coupons for making choices that benefit the environment. Use the coupons or donate part of their value to Whole Planet Foundation.
You can round up your change at the register, because the few cents you donate will be a part of a loan that is borrowed, repaid and re-loaned again and again in rural communities around the globe, and also here in the United States.
You can even start your own fundraising campaign online opens in a new tab. Do that by March 15 and you’ll be entered to win a trip to Morocco to meet microcredit clients like Zahara, who I met last year in Morocco. Get the contest rules and create your donation page now. opens in a new tab
To date, Whole Planet Foundation has committed more than $34 million and disbursed $22 million through microfinance partners around the globe opens in a new tab, supporting 1.5 million people with the opportunity to change their own lives.
Please join the campaign opens in a new tab and enable 200,000 more people with prosperity. Thank you!
