Foundation for Women launches One Dollar a day for one hundred days Campaign
to engage 10,000 people to raise one million dollars

About the Foundation for Women

The Foundation for Women (www.foundationforwomen.org) is a nonprofit organization that empowers impoverished women in developing countries as well as nationally and locally in the San Diego area by giving them access to microcredit loans.

Deborah Lindholm, Founder and Executive Director of the Foundation for
Women, and this year's winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Muhammad Yunus.

The Foundation for Women (FFW) serves impoverished women and those with disease by funding and creating microcredit programs locally and globally. It is currently operating and/or supporting microcredit programs in: San Diego County; Tamil Nadu, India; Lusaka, Zambia; and soon in Monrovia, Liberia. To date, the FFW has helped to reach more than 80,000 women who are living on less than $1/day in southern India. It has partnered with Power of Love Foundation, Harvard Heath and MIT to bring microcredit to an innovative HIV/AIDS program in Zambia and is also working to create a microcredit program in Niger specifically targeting young women dealing with fistula in Niger.

Microcredit is a unique form of banking that provides very small loans to impoverished people. Microcredit is credit for the poor – not charity. The difference from traditional banking is that banks lend to people who have money while microcredit institutions lend to those who have no money. Banks lend to men, while 90% of all microcredit borrowers are women. Most are mothers. Historically women have a repayment rate of 95% whereas men have a payback rate of about 40% and sometimes as low as 10%.

Microcredit is not a handout program – it is a business. It gives thousands of women a way out of their situations, providing loans which generate activities providing them with a foothold to independence and make it possible for them to begin a life in which they can support themselves and their families.

The One Dollar a day campaign was created to remind people of the enormity of poverty and to recognize that by being part of this grassroots microcredit effort they can help millions of people. 1.2 Billion People survive on less than One Dollar a day. Half of the world’s population, (more than 3 Billion people) live on less than Two Dollars a day. Approximately 29.000 children die EVERY SINGLE day from malnutrition and preventable diseases. Over 100 MILLION primary school children are unable to attend school. Poverty is the denial of all human rights.

World renowned artist Zandra Rhodes is creating a signature piece of art to be sold and worn in solidarity with the Foundation for Women. Zandra is designing this piece particularly in support of the women in Africa.  A prototype of the piece is being made by a master designed in San Diego with beads from Africa.  Once the prototype is complete, the piece will then be duplicated in Africa by women living on less than a dollar a day and supported by the FFW Microcredit Program. Zandra’s history of work can be seen on her website www.Zandrarhodes.com.

Foundation for Women