CSR Press Release

Poverty and domestic violence impact women disproportionately - 60 percent of the 1.2 billion at the "Bottom of the Pyramid" living on less than $1 a day are women and one in three women around the world are victims of domestic violence in their lifetimes. The flip side of this coin is resilience to overcome these systemic injustices: for example, microfinance institutions (MFIs) direct 84 percent of their microloans to women because they typically take fewer risks, reinvest profits in family and household, and repay loans better than men.

MicroPlace, the eBay of microfinance that connects individual lenders directly with borrowers, is codifying its commitment to women by launching its Women's Empowerment initiative this Friday at the UN's International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. The initiative formalizes its support for women by committing at least 70 percent of microloans to female borrowers. "For these women, having access to money to start a small business really isn't about fulfilling a dream, it's literally about keeping their families one step ahead of starvation and putting a roof over their heads," says MicroPlace Founder Tracey Turner.

The Grameen Foundation and the American Red Cross are similarly focusing on women in expanding their partnership into the communities most impacted by the 2004 tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia. Specifically, the partnership enables YAMIDA, a Grameen Foundation partner MFI, to open its first branch offices in Lamno, Lhok Kruet and Calang, the most populated regions in Aceh Jaya, the district at the epicenter of the tsunami's touchdown. This expansion extends the partners' existing reach by providing microfinance assistance to more than 6,750 additional women.

It was the Women's Advisory Board of the US arm of KPMG that set the ball rolling toward the firm's recent $1.5 million donation to support a village in Tanzania to eradicate extreme poverty there over the next five years. KPMG announced its support late last month at the Partners' Meeting of the Millennium Promises, a nonprofit launched by Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University's Earth Institute to demonstrate the feasibility of achieving the UN Millennium Goals - such as the eradication of extreme poverty.

In the neighboring country of Rwanda, Dean's Beans Organic Coffee Company is bringing men and women together to overcome gender-based violence by sponsoring a workshop run by Men's Resources International for COOPAC, the cooperative on the shores of Lake Kivu near the Congo border where it purchases coffee. Initially, men identified wife-beating as a cultural norm, but in the safety of the workshop setting, they were able to hear women's pain from this and similar abuse. "I don't know exactly what happened, but within three days men were asking for forgiveness and women were forgiving," said founding president Dean Cycon. "One woman commented, 'We have never seen sadness in a man around violence. Now we know that men feel, too.'" Dean's Beans is sponsoring the workshop in other Rwandan co-ops, "reinforcing my belief that cooperatives can be a powerful vehicle for social development as well as economic," said Cycon.

This article was written by CSRwire contributor Bill Baue.