LIFESTYLE

'Dragons’ Den’ with a heart, anyone? Anna Britten catches up with local microcredit pioneers Deki.

Microcredit: an international financial development you can feel good about. Hand-ups, not hand-outs. The richer citizens of the world lending the poorer ones a tenner. It all started after the Bangladesh famine of 1974, when a Professor Muhammad Yunus (who later won the Nobel Peace Prize) was moved to help village women he saw falling prey to rapacious money lenders. Some people have been promoting its virtues for years, Hillary Clinton being one of them: “Microcredit is a invaluable tool in alleviating poverty.” Bristol’s DEKI is another – it’s the first charity in the UK to offer person-to-person microloans. And now it’s got its eye on your Christmas shopping lists.

Founded in 2008 by 32-year-old Vashti Richards, the Prince Street-based charity allows individuals in the richer parts of the world to lend small amounts of money directly to budding entrepreneurs in the developing world. There’s Awabu in Ghana, for example, who needs £370 for a cold storage facility for the vegetables she sells. Fuseina, meanwhile, wants to expand her corn dough business so she can keep her four children in school. “The idea is that people get to take control of their own futures,” says Vashti. “Because we lend them the money, they can set up sustainable livelihoods, whereas with other forms of aid they are reliant on other people coming and setting up infrastructures or giving donations.”

When Vashti was a teenager, her father sponsored a Tibetan refugee living in North India, Deki Dolkha. At 18, Vashti visited Deki, 15, in her orphanage in Dharamsala and the two young women stayed in touch with letters, photographs and eventually emails. Vashti explains that when Deki was older, she went to college to learn “how to make beds and so on, so she could work in a hotel. But there was no way of her getting a job – there were none available and she had no way of setting up her own business. She was forced to return to her estranged family in remote, rural Tibet, where there was little chance for her to put her education to good use. We wanted to help but didn’t know the best thing to do. Then I read in the press about the concept of microloans and Muhammad Yunus.”

A UWE student at the time, Vashti threw herself into setting up the charity and, though it was hard work (she had a baby soon after her finals), found herself boosted by good will – financial support from UWE covered the cost of the first website and crucially helped fund a trip to Nepal to sign up Deki’s very first field partners. These efforts culminated in Deki winning the university’s Best Social Enterprise Award. Furthermore, the general public took to the idea instantly: “They like the fact that they can see who they are lending the money too. You go on to the website and read stories and see pictures. It’s more exciting than giving to a normal charity because you feel more involved, and because people are repaid, they can reinvest the money, so you can then go on and keep giving. It’s interactive and fun.”

Technically, the system is as watertight as possible. The charity takes no commissions from loans and uses carefully vetted field partners to pass them on to borrowers in their local currency – the minimal interest charged covers only their small running costs. As a donor, your money’s progress is easily tracked, and the transaction is personalized – you receive regular updates on the recipient’s progress and they can learn about you through your individual profile page. Once repaid (typically, after six-12 months), there’s the choice of reinvesting, donating or simply getting your money back. You can, in theory, spend the money twice, thrice and many more times over.

This Christmas, Deki are urging all charitably minded consumers who might be considering purchasing an Africa-bound cow or goat as a gift for a loved one to consider a Deki Gift Certificate. “The charity vouchers concept has been around a while – you just get a bit of paper and even if you think, ‘Oh, that’s great, a goat’, it’s not really much at all as a gift. But a Deki voucher is great because you’re giving a charity gift but also enabling your friend or relative to get involved.”

Gift certificates are sold online – with a downloadable voucher sent either direct to your recipient or to you to wrap in a glittery envelope. On Boxing Day the giftee can then log onto the website and select who they would like to give the loan to. It sounds brilliant. Even the most curmudgeonly recipient will surely balk at asking why you couldn’t have got them bath salts like a normal person. And if they do: “Tell them they’ll get their money back,” laughs Vashti. “We’re sure they’ll be back for more and are likely to reinvest in yet more people’s futures. The worst that can happen is you’ve helped someone in need, and then got your money back.”

FFI: WWW.DEKI.ORG.UK
 

Copyright Anna Britten 2010

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