Image

Jim Christian introduced our speaker Thomas Hendrickson, President and Director since 2010. Dr. Hendrickson has many years of experience in forming and running overseas operations. He has worked on projects in Tanzania for the last ten years. He currently teaches engineering at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Iringa Hope is a US, 501 (c) (3) non-profit corporation dedicated to alleviating poverty in central rural Tanzania in the Iringa District by providing capital for small loans to farmers and shopkeepers running small stores and other local enterprises. This is commonly called micro-finance or micro-credit. Rural Tanzania is one of the poorest regions in the world.

In the past year they have provided 652 loans through their network of Savings and Credit Coops. They will only approve loans if the purpose of the loan is to make money. Iringa Hope provides training classes, seminars and they have a weekly radio program that reaches out to an audience of 100,000, drawing questions from throughout the area.

The staff from Iringa Hope has learned over the past year that most of the loans are taken out for farming and the borrower’s income rise from less than $300/year to about $900/year. This increased income is used to feed their family, send their children to school, and replace their mud huts and grass roofs with brick homes with tin roofs.

For more information visit their FaceBook Page or website: Website: www.iringahope1.org