Partnership Overview

The Christian people of Upper Egypt are the poorest of the poor. Generally, they really struggle to eke out a living, to educate their children and if an emergency comes, they have nothing to fall back on. SB and her husband come from Upper Egypt and they have many friends and contacts there. 

In 2018 SB received a one-off amount of money from a well-wisher. She had just been visiting Upper Egypt and was disturbed by the lives the people were leading. The poverty was grinding. So, she took that gift and went to a friend she knew. Together they developed a small loan programme to help poor women. Her friend turned out to be very smart at running these projects and helping the recipients manage their businesses and repay the small loans. 

Before long, more and more people wanted to join and the funds ran out. Or, to put it better, more was going out than was coming in. The list grew longer and longer and they could only help a few from the repayments they were getting. SB therefore approached BHW to see if it would be possible to boost this small loan project so it could help many more people.  

History of Partnership

BHW's Executive Chairman met N and S a number of years ago and continued to follow their ministry. In December 2014 BHW's New Partnership Facilitator visited Egypt and spent time with them to research opportunities for partnership. Following this visit, in early 2015 BHW commenced partnership with the Vocational Training Centre (EGY01). 

On a subsequent visit to Egypt SB spoke to BHW team members about this loan programme and in late 2019 we commenced providing financial support for this aspect of their ministry.  

Beneficiaries

The beneficiaries here are poor families in Upper Egypt. The programme is not limited to Christians but the majority are as they face great systemic prejudice. 

Many of the beneficiaries are women whose husbands have left Upper Egypt to find work in other places. They may not return home for years at a time leaving the women to look after the families alone. Some just never come home. The children suffer a lot in these circumstances. They are forced by poverty to leave school early to earn daily wages or for the girls to get married. This lessens the financial burden of another mouth to feed. 

This project has the capacity to assist 50-60 families a year. Each family has about 6-8 people.  

What We Like About The Partnership

This has already begun and they have proved they have the capacity to run an effective project.
The key person on the ground is very capable and trustworthy.
This project helps people that we have a particular interest in, the poorest of the poor.
This is not aid, it is a genuine attempt to get the poorest of the poor into some kind of economic independence. 

Key People

Leadership Profile

SB is an entrepreneurial woman. She oversees a vocational training programme and is married to NB. They have three adult children. She is in regular contact with the leaders and visits 3-4 times a year. 

Other People Involved

We are unable to write anything about the key person on the ground for security reasons but the local committee is very capable of overseeing the day to day running of the project. 

Vision And Annual Strategy

Vision 

To help poor Christian families in Upper Egypt become self-sustaining. These people are recommended to the committee through their pastors. 

Strategy

To give small loans to various families to assist them build up their economic resilience. They apply for small loans after attending training. They have to be recommended by other members of the programme. After studying the cases they decide which cases need the most and give small loans to support that projects that they feel will be successful and with low risk so that the beneficiary will be able to pay back the loan as well as have some profit to support their families.

This programme is set up to assist people become self-sustaining. So far the loan repayment has been 100% and the only issue is there are some that delay repaying but they all get paid eventually.

The key to this is the pastoral care that is put around the group and the individuals.