Women's Economic Empowerment in Rural Lebanon

Thank you to everyone for your donations so far! Though we still have a long way to go to be able to have enough funding to effectively implement this project, LOST is optimistic with the progress that has been made.

LOST has held many activities since we posted this project on Global Giving, including ceremonies honoring Lebanon’s teachers with local municipalities, youth initiatives like West Baalbek forestation campaign, and college fairs for the LOST students to become more informed about their academic futures. Also, to prepare for the Women’s Economic Empowerment in Rural Lebanon project, LOST has been meeting with micro-finance institutions, in order to build partnerships for the women who will be trained and educated in ICT and business skills and their business plans.   

LOST has reviewed past income-generating programs and has determined lessons learned in order to address the fundamental problems that increase the vulnerability of women. LOST has concluded that the primary limitation of income-generating projects are the rigid terms of loan repayment and the prohibitive nature of interest rates for the targeted beneficiaries. In fact, 48 out of 50 women voiced that they cannot repay the loan amount in installments within the provisioned period and consequently they did not want to apply.

Not only will this project provide the education needed to develop an income-generating business, but also the hope is that relationships with micro-finance lenders will later allow for flexible repayment terms that bear no-interest on loans disbursed to the women of winning business plans.  This will ensure that small businesses have enough time to adapt to market conditions and start raising income. But repayment is important for the sustainability of this type of program, so important components of the project will also be systematic monitoring, close cooperation and interventions when appropriate to further support Women's business initiatives.