Ti Kredi ("Little Credit")

Ti Kredi ("Little Credit")

Ti Kredi  is Fonkoze’s three-month microfinance program. It provides some of Haiti’s most vulnerable women with business skills training, mentoring, and weekly life skills education to enable them to become successful microentrepreneurs.

Most Ti Kredi clients would be excluded from traditional microfinance programs due to their near-extreme poverty and the higher program cost required to help them learn to manage and invest their loans.

But Fonkoze believes that Haiti’s poorest deserve access to financial services in order to help them create better lives for themselves, their families and their communities.

The Ti Kredi program features loans that increase in size and repayment cycle length in order to help women learn how to successfully manage a small business. Specially trained Ti Kredi credit agents also provide clients with education and guidance in weekly center meetings, enabling them to become strong leaders in their families and communities.

On average, 92% of Ti Kredi clients successfully complete the six-month program. Upon graduating from Ti Kredi, clients’ hunger rates are cut by a third, and nearly 100% of them are able to send their children to school. With their newfound knowledge and skills, nearly 100% of graduates choose to continue into Fonkoze’s third Step on the Staircase Out of Poverty, Solidarity lending.

For the graduate, the achievement of successfully completing the Ti Kredi program includes her own small business, a significant amount in savings and the knowledge and skills to remain a strong provider for herself and her family.