Our Programs
Poverty Alleviation
Savings groups and business training transform lives and help families break free from the cycle of poverty for good.
People are not meant to live in Poverty.
When God created the world, he created it full of abundance and life. Yet, today 712 million people live in extreme poverty – 1 in 11 people.
But poverty is more than just finances. It affects a person’s whole being. It shortens lifespans, limits opportunities for children to go to school, hurts women and girls, and tells people that they don’t matter. And once a family is in extreme poverty, escaping the generational cycle can be next to impossible.
This is not how it should be.
Working alongside the local church, Tearfund employs a number of strategies to help families save, earn more revenue, and lift themselves out of poverty.
How We Help
Our goal is to use methods that build and maintain dignity through localized engagement and community empowerment.
Village Savings and Loans Groups
In many low-income countries, basic financial services like saving accounts and loans are virtually non-existent. When emergency strikes, families are often forced to sell valuable assets or approach predatory loan sharks, who often change impossible interest rates. Both perpetuate the cycle of poverty.
Village Savings and Loans Groups provide an answer. members come together to save money and provide loans and support. These funds are used for emergency expenses, education, home improvements, agricultural supports, or business start-up costs. Groups are member-owned and operated, creating their own bi-laws and using their own funds. These groups are key to creating community, trust, and community-wide change.
Business Training and Marketing
Local businesses create thriving communities and help families climb out of poverty. We work with entrepreneurs to help them start and expand their businesses so that they can earn more revenue and lift themselves out of poverty long-term.
Working in tandem with saving groups, businesses are started with loans and surplus resources, such as cash crops grown specifically to be sold. Business training focuses on a wide variety of subjects such as market education, surplus management, and the supply-demand cycle. Farmer cooperatives are often formed to help get product to market and fairer prices with wholesalers.
Cluster-Level Associations:
Making Change in the Community
In many communities, 8-10 groups will band together, creating a Cluster-Level Association. These associations discuss, plan, and lead community-wide initiatives using the funds available between the groups.
Cluster-level associations have been so successful that they have opened schools, sponsored orphans in the community, built bridges and wells, and more!
Working with the local church.
The church is core to much of our work related to poverty alleviation. As a hub for community activity, many saving groups and training opportunities take place in partnership with churches, within churches or on church property. As a point of influence in the community, local churches employ VSL groups as wonderful tools to create radical change within the communities they serve.
Unleashed Impact
When churches are unleashed, there’s no limit to what they can do.
How Kanini now earns 20X more!
How a widow's funeral changed 100 lives.
God's plan always prevails
With no more rain, no nearby markets to sell at, and skyrocketing prices in rural Kenya, the future looked bleak for Jeniffer.
Still, she trusted in God’s plans for her and he provided. Thanks to a village savings group offered by Tearfund through her local church, Jeniffer now has livestock and and food!
“God knows the plans He has for me,” Jeniffer says confidently.
Seeds of Change
Here’s what happened
this year.
families participated in savings groups
0
individuals achieved greater financial security
$
0
of which were women
0
Donate Today
Help local churches reach beyond their walls and lift families out of physical and spiritual poverty.
Through Tearfund, your gift will equip local churches, and empower individuals, so that families can finally break the cycle of physical and spiritual poverty and see a future of opportunity and lasting hope.
