Whilst £100 is not much to us these days, it is an amount which, even at current exchange rates, is a serious sum to people in the poorest counties in the world. Lendwithcare do what their name says. They have a code of practice and check that the small businesses they lend to are ethical, socially responsible and environmentally aware. Countries involved are: Ecuador, Malawi, Philippines, Cambodia, Vietnam, Zambia and Ruanda.
In October 2016 the International committee was approved by the Club to offer £200 to Lendwithcare. They lent £100 to Braulio Olmedo Caicedo (63, above), a maize farmer in Ecuador to purchase fertilizer and crop protection products. He is on target to complete his loan by end March 2017.
A second loan of £100 was made to Pech Sng Oun (24) to purchase an additional 1 hectare of land to grow rice. His loan is due for completion in November 2019.
This is clearly a scheme which makes a massive difference to the lives of individuals and their families. It not only costs us peanuts at first, but we get our money back, except for a small admin fee to cover the cost of operation of Lendwithcare.
Now that we have a first tentative trial at this maybe we should consider doing more. We haven’t long to wait to see if Braulio completes satisfactorily which would give us added confidence in the scheme