With our sup­port the charity "Houses of Hope", will launch in Bamako (Mali) a micro­­cre­dit pro­gramme for 150 young aspiring busines­swo­men in 2022 and 23. Each credit group has 10 mem­bers and is led by a pre­si­dent en­­sur­ing that the ru­les are ob­serv­ed. All wo­men vouch for each other. The pro­gram­me is sup­ple­men­ted by a cook­ing school, tea­ching food pre­serv­at­ion for later sale. There are aso les­sons in book­kee­ping and mar­ket­ing skills.

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Microcredits give the women the means to buy supplies for their self-em­ploy­ment. In Mali, there is po­ver­ty, hun­ger and food short­ages. Meals are ex­pen­sive, fami­lies lack money. At the same time, due to in­suffi­cient coo­ling, sur­plus food spoils after the har­vest be­cau­se it can­not be pro­cess­ed quickly en­ough.

The ma­jori­ty of the sup­port­ed wo­men are solely res­pon­si­ble for the family in­come. They of­ten pro­vide for the ent­ire ex­ten­ded fa­mily. M­icro­cre­dits are an im­po­rtant con­tri­bu­tion to de­velop­ing the in­de­pen­den­ce and self-re­lia­nce of young women in Mali. A pre­requis­ite for parti­cipa­tion is an agree­ment with the mothers to send their chil­dren to school.