OMI_Micro-Loans

Due to its practical impact and sustainability, the micro-loan vision has been reproduced in hundreds of organizations around the world impacting millions of the world’s poorest. The term “Poorest” typically refers to families whose income is in the bottom 50% of those living below their country’s poverty line. Today more than 1.2 billion live on less than $1 per day and one in three people die prematurely due to poor nutrition and calorie deficiency.

Opportunities, especially for women, do not exist in most third world countries. Oppressive regimes and corruption make it impossible for the poor to ever be anything but poor. At the merciless hands of money lenders many are forced to borrow money at rates as high as 10% per week. Once they repay the middleman they’re left with virtually no profit and no hope of ever escaping this crushing cycle.

REACHING THE WORLDS POOREST

After years of being exploited and oppressed, people with God-given intelligence and abilities become demoralized and hopeless. These precious men and women can and do work very hard. They simply need to be given the chance to do so. Micro-loans give them that chance.

We have discovered that with a very small amount of money it is possible not only to help people survive, but to spark within them the personal initiative, creativity and enterprise necessary for them to pull themselves out of poverty. By making small financial loans available to those society has rejected, Christian micro-loan programs bring physical and spiritual hope to the poorest of the poor.