Sunflower Power in Nigeria
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Women gather at a Notre Dame mission in Nigeria to learn about micro loans.
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The Sunflower Women Self-Help Association is a long name for a simple concept: when financial backing is extended to impoverished women, creative productivity will result. In Nigeria, that is precisely what is happening. Since 2002, the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur have been granting micro loans to indigent rural women, helping them to launch small businesses. These efforts have spawned modest economic development in rural regions as well as an increased sense of dignity and self-worth among the women. "The loans are minimal," said Sister Leonore Coan, Director of Mission Support. "But in Nigeria that's enough to launch a micro business." Home-based businesses established with the help of these micro-loans include cooking, cleaning or indigenous arts and crafts enterprises in addition to sewing and laundry ventures.
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It's Not Just About the Money
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In Nigeria, babies accompany their mothers everywhere. They even attend the Sisters' classes for their mothers that focus on strategic business planning and financial management.
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Before Sisters award micro loans, they educate the Nigerian women about global and local issues that affect the women's well-being. Sisters conduct classes on health issues, climate change, gender inequality, domestic abuse and sexual violence. Helping women to name the array of problems that beset them and their children is the first step to finding solutions and circumventing problems. The goal of the Sunflower Women Self-Help Association is to empower impoverished women to improve their personal health, nutrition, sanitation and education, as well as that of their families. That's why the Sisters provide the women with a rudimentary education and methods for successful small business management. Helping these women to achieve success and a more healthful standard of living is at the root of the Sisters' efforts.
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