Microfinance and self-help projects as tools of Empowerment

Come and join us at our final roundtable discussion...

featuring: Rose Rivera, Microcredit Expert, and Vivian Kiefer-Vargas,
member, Federal Commission for Foreigners (FCF / EKA) and member, Forum for
Integration and Migration, Baselland

moderator: Lina Gschwend, TP social worker

when: April 29, 2005, Friday at 18:30 p.m.

where: Tuluyang Pinoy

how to get there: Tram 2 or 3 until Albisriederplatz or Bus 33 or 72 or Tram
8 until Hardplatz

Our last topic fits right in with our goal of helping our kababayans help
themselves. It just so happens that this is the UN Decade for the
Eradication of Poverty. And 2005 is the International Year of Microcredit.

Microcredit is the provision of small loans to targeted poor households,
especially women. Many developing economies in the last two decades adapted
it as an anti-poverty strategy. Between 5 billion to 6 billion Pesos of
loans have been disbursed to borrowers by some 21 NGO- microfinance
institutions and 121 Rural Banks in the Philippines. These microfinance
institutions have seen the potential profitability in microfinance. A number
of serious and long-standing MFIs showed sustainability in their operations,
proving that microfinance clients are able to repay loans, manage household
incomes, build assets and enterprises and contribute to the economy.

Rose Rivera, with 10 years' experience in microfinance in the Philippines,
will explain how microfinance can help create livelihood opportunities for
the poor and how Filipinos abroad can take advantage of some of the
opportunities.

We have also invited Ms. Vivian Kiefer-Vargas of Maharlika Switzerland
Basel, a Filipino community organization that received the Banaag
Presidential Award in 2002, to share with us her experiences in organizing
and raising funds for her organization's projects in Switzerland and in the
Philippines.

We hope you will join us in this discussion. Your input will be most
welcome!

Snacks and drinks will be served before the discussion. This project is
supported by the Eidg. Kommission für Ausländerfragen (EKA) and the
Kantonale Beauftragte für Integrationsfragen - Zürich. Participation is free
of charge but any donation will be gladly accepted.