Our newest philanthropic partner, Waves of Hope, is a grass roots charity founded by three close friends who had a dream of opening a small eco-friendly beach resort in Nicaragua that would focus on projects that benefit the local community.

Their dreams came to fruition on July 23, 2009 when Waves of Hope was founded in Toronto, Canada and just six months later the other half of their dream was realized with the opening of El Coco Loco Resort

Waves of Hope focuses on three key pillars: education, health and infrastructure and has established multiple cooperatives in the region including Hilos de Esperanza and Artesania del Mar our partner cooperative. 

What we love most about Waves of Hope, is that they are truly integrated within their local community; living, working and playing alongside their neighbours. Its part of what makes El Manzano Uno such a unique and special spot. 

Their projects and initiatives are ideas and concepts developed by working with their neighbours, empowering them to design and implement their own path out of poverty. 

Stay tuned for additional information on our partnership with Waves of Hope...

 

  

Aligned with our entrepreneur spirit and focused on embracing diversity FINCA is a natural choice as a philanthropic partner. 

A portion of proceeds from each sale goes directly into the hands of Nicaraguan entrepreneurs. FINCA provides financial services so they can create jobs, build assets and improve their standard of living.

With over 70% of their clients being women, FINCA realizes that women represent the majority of the poor and have the least access to capital. They are often single mothers who provide the sole source of income for their families. 

The Nicaraguan chapter of FINCA has over 40,000 clients with 80% of them benefiting from Village Bank loans.

What is a Village Bank Loan?

Groups of 10-25 self selected low income small business owners receive very small loans - as low as $50 - to support the growth of their businesses. Clients are primarily storeowners but also include arts and crafts, manufacturing, farming and fishing. The methodology relies on the group’s mutual guarantee of repayment for the individual members’ borrowing and leverages group and social cohesion to foster empowerment and financial literacy in a peer led, community setting. 

Sounds pretty cool eh? What is even more remarkable is the 99.1% on-time repayment rate which speaks to how the methodology is truly working. Low income small business owners are able to give their businesses the nourishment it needs to flourish and grow. 

We had the opportunity to visit the Leon office in November of 2013 and met some of the clients that benefit from your purchase. You learn more about our visit here

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