Spotlight: Mentors International

by KATIE BROOKS

When a 55-year-old mother in a small Ghana village lost her husband, she couldn’t provide enough food for her children, let alone pay for them to attend school. But in 2017, “Mama Adjani” joined the first business class organized by the Ghana branch of Mentors International. After six weeks of training on self-reliance and business principles, Mama Adjani received a microloan to start her fish-selling business. Only months later, she paid off her loan and makes enough money to feed her family, buy good clothes, and send a child to school.

Success stories like Mama Adjani’s detail why Mentors International was formed. The founders—Menlo Smith, Warner Woodworth, and Steven Mann—wanted to empower the world’s poor through mentoring and access to financial services. The end goal: to end poverty in a self-sustaining way.

Mentors International calls Draper, Utah, home, but has offices in the Philippines, Honduras, Peru, Guatemala, El Salvador, Ghana, and Nepal. The organization’s clients represent the poorest of the poor, and 90% of them are women. Many of these women cannot own land or work with banks. Mentors International provides the training and financial services these women desperately need.

The success of the Mentors International programs is staggering so far. Since its founding in 1990, clients have received $77 million in loans. The 96% historical payment rate proves that clients are able to work hard and reap the rewards of education and a hand up instead of just handouts. Many of the clients start businesses that require hiring additional workers; in 2017 alone, entrepreneurs created over 15,000 new jobs after receiving help from Mentors International.

With such amazing results, it’s no wonder that Mentors International is growing. They opened a new office in Northern Ghana in June of 2017 and plan to open a new area in Nepal. The organization is excited at the prospect of being able to service the Nepalese people with microloans of $100 or less—loans too small for micro-finance organizations in Nepal to provide due to governmental regulations. Loans of this size may sound small to Americans, but they allow a Nepalese client to start a business and, importantly, pay back the small loan.

Volunteers and donors enable the growth and work of Mentors International. Even what feels like a small amount to those in first-world countries can change a life in a country like Ghana or Nepal, and Mentors International also needs volunteers to donate their talents in business, teaching, and other areas. Few organizations come closer to the ideal of helping the poor help themselves.

People interested in volunteering with or donating to Mentors International are encouraged to visit the organization’s website, for more information.