All members of “15 de Diciembre Groupe” are involved in commercial activities in their hometown, for example selling food, drinks and cosmetics or running a  hairdressing and laundry service. Nancy, president of the group, requested the loan, so the members  can buy more food,  modern tools for hairdressing, and summer-season supplies to sell to their customers. All women work mainly for their children: Their biggest hope is that they will able to get a proper education and job one day.

We also made a microfinance bid for Josie: The 47-year mother of three old runs a successful motorcyle business in Ozamiz City, Philippines. To make a living, Josie owns and operates a transportation service  that uses “habal-habal” – a motorcycle with an extended seat to carry passengers. Josie has been engaged in her business for over 13 years and earns approximately 23o Euros a month from it. She needs the loan to be able to repair her motocycles and offer a better service.

Another business we invested in is the mobile phone shop of Mouhamad from Tyre, in southern Lebanon. The 20-year old newly-wed has been selling and repairing phones, as well as sells mobile accessories like covers, chargers, earphones and top-up phone cards. His clients are his friends and neighbours from his hometown. He decided to start this business because of his experience in sales, as well the fact that he took computer studies in school. With his loan he would like to purchase more mobile phones and accessories for his shop. He also plans to expanding his business by selling computers.

We wish them all best of luck and hope that our bids help them to successfully develop their business!

We believe in microfinance, because people like you and me can make investments that stimulate motivation and grow over time. Help us to turn the dreams of thousands of entrepreneurs into reality. All it takes is a small loan, which helps people to help themselves. We hope that you like the idea and follow suit.

Have a merry Christmas everybody and thanks a lot for a great year 2009!

Thomas Hessler, Heiko Rauch and Jens Hewald

We supported three projects in Kenya: Businesswoman Odilla founded her company Steod Beauty Products in 2005 and it has been growing ever since. She specializes in selling garments, shoes, handbags, hair products, cosmetics, perfumes, jewelery and other beauty products. She also runs a general shop where she sells sweets, cakes and rice.

The second Kenyan business we invested in is John Gitobu’s construction company Jozipy Hardware. John is selling construction materials and since he has some big projects coming up, he needs to buy a larger vehicle in order to transport his goods. The third Kenyan entrepreneur is Susan Kanyeki, who started her business called Friendly Farms in 1993.  She now possesses her own cooling plant which currently process up to 10,000 litres of milk per day. The business is looking to diversify into the more lucrative cheese and yoghurt markets. Susan has therefore begun constructing her own production factory.

We also made two investments in Tanzania: Sebastian Abdala Msola owns the logistics company Samtco Transport, which provides national and international transportation solutions to major African shipping companies. Since the demand for transporting big containers and logs increases, Sebastian would like to buy a new truck. The second entrepreneur from Tanzania is Imaculata Damas Paul. She owns a clothes and cosmetics shop and employs one more female sales person. She now wants to offer more goods to meet her customers’ demands.

We wish all of them best of luck with their business and are looking forward to more interesting projects we can support.

The Haiti-based group is called “Mi Corason De Grand Bassin” and consists of fifteen male and female entrepreneurs. They have a wide range of businesses ranging from phone cards and repairs, to used clothing to peanut sales. 23-year old Lazar Rolinx, one of three representatives of the group, sells phone cards for all of the major phone companies in the country. He has also created a relationship with another business that repairs phones. By developing his business, he hopes to be better able to support his family.

The second project we are investing in is the business of 28-year old Cesarían in Peru. The mother of four children plants bananas, corn, yucca, and ginger in their own fields. She is also in touch with buyers in Lima, so she can increase her income to be able to pay for her children’s education.  With her current loan  she wants to buy fertilizers and to clear the fields for the next ginger planting.

Our third bid goes to Chum Thon in Cambodia. The 28 years old father of four young children has been performing as a musician since 2007. With the 5 dollars he earns from that every day, and his wife making additionally 5 dollars per day from selling cakes, they make their living. Chum Thom wants to use his loan to purchase musical instruments.

We wish him and all the other entrepreneurs best of luck and hope that our bids help them to successfully develop their business!

With the bid for Tuvshinbayar Myanganbuu, we are supporting the clothing business of a 23-year old woman in Arhangai Province, one of Mongolia’s central provinces. With her business profit, she looks after her parents, who have been in the retail clothing business since 1995. She has always been helping in her parents’ business and now, with her own business as the the sole family income, she works hard to make her living and look after her parents. We hope that she will now be able to purchase more clothing and small items for her business.

We also decided to support the entrepreneurs group Las Progresivas in Bolivia: The group has women and men who dedicate themselves to selling cosmetics, food, bakery goods, jewelry, CDs, DVDs, and footwear. We especially appreciate the efforts of the female president and co-founder of Las Progresivas, Ana Ynga Rojas Justiniano.  Her income helps to sustain her family. She dedicates herself to clothing sales and, with this new loan, she will also start selling shoes.

And last but not least: We made our third bid to Tidjani Shaibu Adamu in Ghana, who sells electrical appliances at Kotokoraba in Cape Coast. Tidjani is married and has been selling electrical appliances since 1993 in order to pay the school fees for his children. With the loan he wants to buy more electrical appliances and hopes to reinvest his new profits in his business.

We wish all of them, Tuvshinbayar, Tidjani and Las Progresivas, best of luck for their businesses and are sure they will succeed.  And of course we again hope that you now feel a little inspired by our new investments and follow us on the way to help investing in sustainable projects around the world.

With investing in Vagif Abbasov, based in the Khirdalan settlement in Azerbaijan, we would like to support his idea of expanding his business for office supplies, books and discs. “I know that the people need the office supplies and the books, discs for education and that is why I want to buy discs with the programmes and books for self-education for people”, Vagif says. We thought this is a great intention and he deserves as much support as possible.

The second new project we are happy to support, is the printing shop of Mukiga Ganshanga in Uganda. He holds a degree in Education and started off with a bookshop, which soon expanded to a printing business to supply the schools in his area. He employs five workes, two of which are women. Now he needs more machinery to meet his customers demands, for example a modern printing machine and a paper cutter.

We are sure that both, Ganshanga and Vagif, will be very successful in their business and wish them best of luck. Of course we hope that you now feel again inspired by our new investments and follow us on the way to help investing in sustainable projects around the world.

So we would like to take the chance to thank you for a successful year 2008 and to wish you all a merry Christmas!

As you might already know, we decided to stop donating and start investing in innovative ideas and entrepreneurship around the world this Christmas. From now on, we will help people who don’t have the chance to get financial support from a bank. Read more about our investment in sustainability here: www.zanox.com/sustainability

We are looking forward to working with you in a new successful year 2009!

Have a happy holiday and a fabulous Christmas!

We are very excited about the potential of online microfinance: Imagine a world where ambitious and innovative entrepreneurs are not dependent on the goodwill and random decision-making of big financial players anymore. This is the true web 2.0 spirit we believe in as a company.

And yes, the idea of microfinance might have been emerged in the context of developing countries, but it’s not limited to third world projects. Similar platforms have been founded in Europe to support European projects.

We’ll kick-off with 10,000 Euros, using different platforms and supporting different projects. For example we invested in Sammy Ngure Kungu’s cyber café in Kenya. Sammy plans to expand his business and would like to buy more computers.

And we supported the Nancy Patiño Menacho Group, an ambitious group of female entrepreneurs in Bolivia. The group members are involved in varoius economic activities such as cosmetics or food shops and internet cafés.

Of course we will keep you up to date on the progress on this blog and will soon introduce more projects we invest in.

We hope that many of you will follow us on this way and are now as thrilled about microfinance as we are.

Have a merry Christmas and a happy new year,

Thomas Hessler
and the whole zanox team