Southern New Hampshire University/University of Limpopo
Country:
South Africa
Award Date:
2003
Award Amount:
$125,000.00
Cost Share:
$202,500.00
Other Funds:
$81,600.00
Other Partners:
Small Enterprise Foundation (SEP); Rural AIDS Development Action Research; Community Microfinance Network; Finmark Trust; Micro Finance Regulatory Council; Women’s Development Bank; South Africa Microenterprise Association; Ford Foundation; World Education
This collaboration developed a self-sustainable Microenterprise Development Institute at the University of Limpopo (UL) that provides economic development training to a burgeoning class of microenterprise practitioners, community leaders, and microentrepreneurs working in their local communities. This Institute serves as a model for future partnerships between international institutions of higher education, but also as a model project to be replicated at similar microfinance institutes in southern and eastern Africa.
The partners also developed and implemented a marketing and outreach plan and engaged participants in a three-week Micro-Development Institute held in September 2004.
A committee comprised of NGOs, UL, SNHU, and the Ford Foundation designed a comprehensive curriculum for a Microenterprise and Development Certificate that included courses on capacity building, women’s empowerment to combat HIV/AIDS through microfinance, and rural poverty. The Ford Foundation South Africa and USAID/Washington provided full scholarships for 12 practitioners from southern Africa.