Tuesday 11 February 2014

Project Hope: Your Little Loan Will Light Up a Village

I write this to request you for a little loan. Yes, I write this to ask you to lend a little of your hard-earned money - money that will help light up many a dark homes of Jaynagar, a poor far flung West Bengal village.  It will help Ayonara Molla buy a solar lantern for her home.


Ayonara Molla and her neighbours in the village of Jaynagar are frequently bogged down by the irregular electricity supply to the village. Like in many other parts of the country, electricity supply is erratic here, with frequent power cuts that many a times last up to 12 hours at a time. Other power alternatives are either expensive and so beyond their meagre means or are less heavy on the pocket but unhealthy. These women now wish to buy solar lanterns for their homes and it is for this reason that they are looking for a loan of Rs. 8000 - to buy solar-powered lanterns. These lanterns last up to 8 to 10 hours on full charge and need no additional fuel except the light from the sun.

Having a cheap alternative source of light will not only improve the quality of life of these villagers but would also help them to efficiently continue with their daily work even after sunset. Having a regular and cheap power alternative will also ensure that their children can continue with their studies despite the frequent power cuts.


The Hope Project: To help Ayonara and many needy women like her, Milaap has come up with the Hope Project - a campaign to inspire urban masses towards empowering rural women through small monetary contributions.  Your contribution , or loan as we call it - would be just that, a loan, and not charity or donation. Once the need of the borrower is met, the money you loan would gradually be repaid to your Milaap account. Subsequently you will have the choice of either re-lending your money to some other needy borrower or withdrawing the amount from your Milaap account.

Here's how Milaap's loan cycle works

Choose a borrower from the listed profiles, based on the impact area you are most concerned about

Make your loan online, all of your money get disbursed through field partners

As the borrower repays your loan, the amount get accumulated in your Milaap account 

You can either withdraw the repaid amount, or re-lend to another needy borrower.


The Hope Project: To help Ayonara and many needy women like her, Milaap has come up with the Hope Project - a campaign to inspire urban masses towards empowering rural women through small monetary contributions. Your contribution, or loan as we call it - would be just that, a loan, and not charity or donation. Once the need of the borrower is met, the money you loan would gradually be repaid to your Milaap account. Subsequently you will have the choice of either re-lending your money to some other needy borrower or withdrawing the amount from your Milaap account.

Your little help will go a long way in helping someone lead a better life. Please do your good deed of the day, and contribute whatever you can to light up Ayonara and her neighbours' lives. The payment can be made through Debit/Credit cards and net Banking, and you can make the payment in Indian currency or US dollars.

Here's the link to make your contribution: http://milaap.org/fund/anoyara-molla-and-group/2096?&referrer_id=8827

Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart.

'If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.' - Mother Teresa

This post has been written for the Hope Project undertaken by Milaap on Indiblogger.

4 comments:

  1. After reading your post and going through Milaap's website, I wanted to donate, But it seems I do not have choice to donate less than Rs. 2500 at a time.

    Little hesitant now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Varun - First, it wouldn't be a donation as I have clearly mentioned in the post, it is a LOAN - that's what project hope is all about - facilitating crowd-funding. The loan you give (whatever the amount) will eventually be returned to you. In fact the time span is also mentioned.

      And as per your query about the amount - you can loan out as little as 100rs as well, 2500 is not the minimum amount.

      Delete
  2. Beautifully written and portrayed Ragini...Milaap is indeed a wonderful initiative. All the Best!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Need of the hour- the efforts.
    Well penned! Hope to meet up soon in the forthcoming blogger meets, Ragini!
    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete