Giving Back Since 1995
From our inception in 1995, Higher Ground has given back! Of course, through our client’s participation in our ‘Give-Back’ style Team Building activities we’ve donated an incredible amount of bikes, meals, backpacks, homeless ‘Care Kits,’ and much more. Additionally, Team Higher Ground gives back through financial contributions to worthy charities. Starting in 2011 we launched a major new effort to help micro-finance the working-poor in developing nations!
A ‘Micro-Financing’ Hand-Up…
Since 2011 Team Higher Ground has been sponsoring hard-working entrepreneurs in developing nations through KIVA’s micro-financing portal. Here’s just a few of the the many people we’ve provided a hand-up to…
SONIA
Age 36, lives with her husband and four children in Lima, Peru. They work together every day to get ahead. This hard-working mother makes clothing, for men and women, in a workshop in her home. She works with her husband to produce clothes they sell wholesale to department stores in Lima. Even though she has to work all day, every day to have success, she is very peaceful as she is able to safeguard the education of her children!
NIEVES
63 years old and lives in the town of Palcamayo, Peru. She is a cheerful and hardworking woman who lives in her own house with her youngest daughter, Liz, who is 26 and the reason for all her hard work. When she was very young she learned to work in the fields with her parents and now she has her own land which she plants and takes care of with much love and patience then sells her crops at the local market!
MARGARET
35 years old, married and a mother of four children, living in Eldoret, Kenya. She has a shop where she sells goods such as soap, tea leaves, rice and salt. She plans to use the entire loan to add stock to her shop so that she can provide everything her customers ask for. In the future she hopes to educate her children to the highest level and also own a bigger shop so she can better provide for her children's health and schooling!
FERNANDA
45 years old mother of two children aged ten and three living in Portoviejo, Ecuador. To earn income she sells women's beauty products (cosmetics, perfume, and accessories). Fernanda lets her customers have the products on credit and then she collects money from them each week. Fernanda’s dream is to have her own store one day and to do well for the sake of the happiness and wellbeing of her two children!
WARABA
29-year old woman who lives with her seven children and her husband in Ouelessebougou, Mali. Waraba did not have the opportunity to go to school, so at a young age she became interested in revenue-generating activities, notably the buying and selling of clothing and condiments. Waraba will employ the loan to further diversify her business and hopes to become a children's clothing wholesaler in Ouelessebougou!
PAHE
45 years old, married, and a mother of four children living in Mariakani, Kenya. She sells dried fish in the local market and her business has been in operation for the last thirteen years. With this loan, she plans to expand her business by purchasing more fish for reselling. The anticipated profits will be used to repay the loan and to expand her business further. Her dream is to become a successful business lady!