On March the 8th, International Women’s’ day, we announced a new round of grants particularly targeting women or women’s co-operatives, to be funded by the grant from the Futur 21 Foundation through the Global Fund for Forgotten People.

Ghadir, in the picture above, was struggling to fund her university studies in electrical engineering at al Najaf University in Nablus, and came to find out about the program. Through the training and introductory session, it became clear that with a loan to fund the increase in her family’s herd of goats by three and to supplement the bulk purchase of hay for the winter, Ghadir would be able to sell the additional goats milk products and thus supplement her income sufficiently to make ends meet.

On the 6th of November, Ambassador Simpson met the goats, and caught up with Ghadir and was glad to see that all is going extremely well. Her studies are progressing well as a second year student of a five-year program, the goat product sales are on target, loan repayments are current and her family, proud of her success, is committed to helping her care for the goats. She is the eldest of five children, her younger brothers help look after the goats while their sister is in Nablus and takes two buses every day there, and another two back, to be at home and care for the family.

Ghadir also agreed to join an advisory committee made up of members of the local society and other loan recipients, so that she can help other potential applicants through the process of applying and implementing their programs. She is driven by the fact her repayments stay within the community, and is proud that her success will result in others receiving loans from the repayment proceeds.