Dignity Through Self Reliance
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News & Events - December '09 eNews
President's Christmas Message
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to our valued supporters! Thank you for your generous hearts and for the assistance you have given to lift the lives of so many across the globe with a “hand up, not a hand out.”
Mentors international has now been in operation for nearly 20 years. It has been an exciting ride for those of us privileged to work in the day-to-day operations of helping to lift wonderful families from poverty. The lives of our hard-working employees in the developing countries in which we work have also been blessed as they have assisted literally hundreds of thousands of individuals in their rise from poverty.
Because of you, Mentors has been able to reach some important milestones this year.
Mentors has now reached the mark of serving 35,000 active clients. Manila, Philippines reached operational self sufficiency (OSS) one year ago. In just this year, without any funding assistance, this organization grew from serving 17,000 active clients to serving 22,000 active clients. This organic growth will now be greatly accelerated in the coming year as we increase our funding to Manila. Another organization in the Philippines—Davao—has now reached 5,100 clients, and has also reached OSS. These are historic milestones for these foundations, which will now enable Mentors to serve many, many more families.
The year 2009 has sparked an outpouring of training utilization. Mentors has provided training to over 600,000 participants in training workshops so far this year. Training and mentoring is an important part of our program and has helped our clients increase their net earnings dramatically.
For several years, our average repayment rate has hovered between 95 to 96 percent, although some of the organizations have achieved higher levels. In September, our average repayment rate among all partner foundations was at an astonishing 97 percent.
Perhaps the most exciting news of all is that Mentors is on the verge of breaking even organization-wide. This means that our subsidiary partners across the board are nearing OSS, meaning that their overhead costs are being covered through their increasingly efficient operations. We express our congratulations to our partner foundations who, through their combined efforts, achieved the outstanding overall achievement of 91.4 percent OSS in the month of September 2009.
The successes of our partners this year is very good news for you, our valued investors. It means that your contributions go not just to overseas programs; it means they go directly to building the overseas loan fund, thereby benefitting many, many more families.
Thank you once more for working shoulder-to-shoulder with Mentors to lift thousands of families worldwide to the dignity of self reliance. We, at Mentors, are honored to serve with you.
Mark L. Petersen
President and CEO
Floods and Storms affect Clients and Staff
“Thank you for your kind concern,” wrote Jovy Guanzon, regional PMDF (Mentors Philippines) director. “By God's mercy, many were spared from the horrifying rampage of the recent floods.”
However, a total of 2,442 clients were severely affected by the floods and storms, half of them from Mentors’ Pasig Branch. Families numbering 265 lost their homes, while 1,538 clients lost their business assets. Four lost members of their immediate families (husbands or children). Communications were greatly impeded for a time and most of those severely affected were in the midst of thousands of other refugees in government shelters.
In addition, Manila staff members were stranded in their provinces due to impassable roads. Two offices were inundated with chest-high waters, and the employees were forced to ride in small make-shift boats in order to reach their offices. Pasig City turned into a Venice of sorts, with mostly small boats and floaters plying the road-turned water ways. Since Metro Manila is close to a large lake, a basin where all other flood waters flow, it took a couple of weeks for the waters to recede.
“We have been able to mobilize our loan officers, staff and clients,” said Jovy, “ to donate clothes, sandals, slippers, shoes, blankets, cooking utensils and whatever they could spare for distribution to those affected.”
Mentors Philippines responded to the disaster by freezing the loans of affected clients for a certain period, and restructuring others. In addition to these actions, affected centers were also allowed to partially make use of their Center Savings Fund to provide very urgent relief goods (food and clothing), their members needed.
Mentors board members also made an extra donation of $12,000 to help Philippines employees who were adversely impacted by the floods. Many expressed gratitude for the assistance that came in response to a life-threatening event. “There is much gratitude in our hearts for the generous directors and staff of Mentors International, who have, in the hour of need, lovingly responded to the exigency of those affected by the recent record-breaking floods that hit Manila,” Jovy wrote.
In spite of the severe tropical storm that impacted El Salvador in November, executive director Carlos Rivas reported that staff and clients had been properly accounted for.
Successful Gala Increases Poverty Awareness
Over 800 people attended the reception and dinner with the purpose of raising funds for Mentors’ partner organizations in the Philippines and Central and South America.
“Our gala had two primary purposes,” said Mark Petersen, CEO and President. “First, we wanted to give as many individuals as possible the opportunity to assist us in our dream of teaching, mentoring, and providing financial services to lift the poor from poverty with a hand up, not a hand out. Second, we wanted to raise awareness in our country that there really are effective and responsible ways of solving the world’s massive poverty problem.”
Petersen refers to his organization’s 96 percent repayment rate of all the tiny loans Mentors extends to the working poor in the countries they are able to serve. The 5 Browns, who provided world class entertainment for the evening, were able to meet some of these trustworthy entrepreneurs in a Mentors trip to Central America last July.
“We took these talented young performers with us to meet some of our clients in Guatemala and El Salvador,” said Petersen. “They were able to personally meet some of the families we are lifting from poverty.”
The 5 Browns, five siblings (three girls and two boys) all in their twenties, dazzled the gala crowd, playing five Steinway concert grand pianos in perfect precision, just as they have done worldwide from Beijing to Berlin.
“The idea of helping people help themselves immediately touched us,” said Melody Brown. “What really sold us was when we attended last year’s gala and saw the pictures and heard the stories of the clients whose lives had changed when someone trusted them enough to give them a small loan. We are grateful that we can do our part to help Mentors clients.”
In addition to The 5 Browns’ performance, Padma Venkataraman, daughter of former Indian President R. Venkataraman, was given Mentors’ International Humanitarian Service Award.Besides Venkataraman’s national fight against leprosy in India, she has also made great strides in incorporating micro lending into numerous leprosy colonies. Her determination to break the cycle of leprosy transmission for future generations has become a model for giving these individuals the dignity they deserve.
“Mentors has reached an important milestone,” Petersen said in closing comments. “Our dream” of growing from serving 36,000 families annually to over one million families annually in the next five years is an ever-increasing reality. As many of our partner organizations are reaching a profitable position, organic growth fueled with contributions and investment funds will make this happen.”
Mentors attacks poverty worldwide by providing microcredit loans, business training, high-quality mentoring, and encouragement to hardworking micro-entrepreneurs, especially women.
Mentors currently directs the efforts of five subsidiary organizations in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Peru, and the Philippines. During its 19-year history, it has helped more than 1.5 million people and 267,000 families work their way out of poverty.
Ninety-six percent of all loans granted by Mentors are repaid and the funds are self-perpetuated to the benefit of even more clients.
For more information on how you can help eliminate the causes of poverty, visit the Mentors website at www.enterprise-mentors.org or call 801-676-7776.
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