How a Coffee Bean Gets into Your Cup

from Liz Uible

On Monday I visited the other micro-lending facility we are working with in Rwanda. They are just rolling out a micro-lending program for the women coffee farmers who want to make money in the off season.

Evidently in some places, like Congo, coffee grows all year long and has several harvests. In Rwanda, there is only one harvest due to less rainfall. To compensate, Rwanda generally produces a higher value bean… the kind in Starbucks rather than Folgers.

In the off season, things like school fees are due and the children want to eat. So the cooperative is encouraging women to start cottage-industry businesses- crafts, sewing, etc.

The WomenforWealth.com Foundation granted some seed money to start their program and they are now putting together the training to make sure the loans are used appropriately (see post from yesterday).






(above- demonstrating the foot peddle sewing machine at the electric-free washing station)

Since we have spent so much time with the women leaders of Rwanda and also with successful entrepreneurs this trip, I am even more clear how important micro-lending can be. It gets down to what locals call “grass roots people.” The really poor who are smart, but have no hand up in the world. I will connect the COOPAC co-op people with the organizations we know who are doing micro-lending training so that they have a baseline to begin from.

While I was visiting Coopac, I was reminded how amazing a cup of coffee is.

Who thought to take this berry,

sort the bad out,





pull off the pulp,




wash it,





wash it again,







dry it,







sort it again,




pull off the hull, roast it and then grind the pit into little bits and pour hot water on top?????

How does one happen upon such an idea, anyway?
That is a lot of steps to get your java and is mostly done by hand at the washing station.

And then, to celebrate and impress visitors, the COOPAC dance troop dances. And the singers sing.

You can see some of it live from when another group went (they are very proud to be on Youtube.)

http://youtube.com/watch?v=VKHl5C6bzkw

Micro-Lending Training

From Liz Uible

One can not give a credit line to a high school student who has no
financial experience and expect her to use it wisely with no training.
In the same way, you can not give a $100 business loan to a woman
in a village in Rwanda without training her on how to run a
business and take care of money. The one week training is to
teach her that the loan is to grow her business and the profit is
to pay living expenses. Not the other way around.

On Tuesday, we went to see the training for micro-lending that Dr.
Immaculee has created. She has this very dynamic man who
knows everyone’s name and gets really excited. He seems
interesting to learn from. The trainings are done in Kinyarwanda,
the local language. (In Rwanda they also speak French and English,
but only the well educated.)

Liz Uible with Rwandan Women in Training

Christine Harvey with future micro loan recipients

We were invited for the second day of the 20-person training
sponsored by the WomenforWealth.com Foundation for Micro-lending.
These are twenty mostly HIV positive women who, when they are
done with the training and present a verbal business plan, will get
a small loan to start a business. The loans will be under $100.
We met each participant and shook hands. There was a woman
with a small child who she entertained as she took in the lessons.
We communicated mostly with our eyes.

The instructor talks to them as a large group and then they break up
and do work in 3-4 small groups to do assignments. Tuesday morning
they were talking about their expectations of what they would
learn and what that new knowledge would help bring them. One
person from each group would write the verbal ideas on flip chart
paper and then they shared them as a group.

One of the great things about that format is that is promotes
reconciliation among women whose communities were torn apart
by genocide just 14 years ago.

Madeleine Nichols holds hands with women at training

I was really impressed. I discovered a bias I held about the
illiterate of the world. Maybe it comes from elementary school
when by third grade the children who didn’t know how to read or
write yet were labeled ‘slow’ –and really did seem that way. I
did not know I had that bias until I met these women and was
truly surprised by their intelligence and self-confidence. We talked
to them about how excited we are for their futures, and they
made speeches right back to us with confidence and ability! It
was truly remarkable.

A woman from the Village gives a speech of thanks (with translator)

And then at the end, with a sense of love and fun, we danced.
And that was the best of all.

Dancing with the Micro Lending training participants

A group photo: Dr Immaculee is in the blue suit in the centerand
Christina Willings, who filmed the whole, is in black

Rwanda and It's Opportunities

Hi Friends,

It’s Monday morning here in Rwanda, 5:30 am. Liz Uible and I are out here with an investment team of five, looking at possibilities. Our highlight was running 4 days of seminars on business skills with the Women of Parliament, followed by training of 40 high level entrepreneurs, which has helped us gauge the level of expertise and to meet potential partners.

Here’s a summary of activities including Micro-Lending, Real Estate Potential, interest from outsiders, other opportunities including quarries and venture capitol, and access to decision makers.

MICRO LENDING
Liz just left with the driver for a day at Lake Kivu, to visit our Micro Lending coffee co-op recipients, who will use the small loans for the women to start businesses between the coffee harvest seasons. Madeleine Nichols and I will see the US Ambassador at 10 am to brief him on our trainings with the women in Parliament and the 2 day conference we ran for women entrepreneurs. Tomorrow we’ll all get to meet the recipients of the Micro Loans to HIV women, through Dr Immaculee. They are starting their 5 day training on how to start up business. Many are illiterate, but they are required to present a profit and loss plan – verbally, if not in writing. They are also taught simple math and reading during the training, as well as nutrition and how to open a bank account.

The part I admire is that Dr. Immaculee has set the loans up in such a way that they have support groups of 10 women amongst themselves – rather like our mastermind groups, except that in addition they are required to co-sign for each other in order to get the loan. That means that during the training, they have to come to know and trust each other and also assess whether each member of their circle has learned enough to be qualified to receive the loan. The initial challenge is that some don’t understand the concept of a loan and it’s repayment, and think at first that it might be a grant or gift. In her program, Dr Immaculee explains the concept of profit, and that they are free to spend their profit on school clothes for the children, but the loan itself must be used for the business.

REAL ESTATE
I had dinner last night with Dr. Immaculee and her husband Sandrali. He’s a well know architect here, having designed the genocide memorial, as well as public and private buildings. We drove around the city first to see his architecture, then eat at a new Chinese restaurant near our rented home in the prestigious Kiovu area, near the American Embassy. One of the houses he built is about 7000 square feet and is along a beautiful curving road along a river, across from a park and lake. I’d not seen this on my last trip, and the curving street and gorgeous flowers made me think I was in Philadelphia for a moment. I asked the prices of houses there, and they run $700 per square meter. Since a meter is longer than a yard, a quick mathematical conversion comes up with $70 per quare foot. That still makes a 5000 square foot house cost close about $350,000. (I previously had a conversion error here, but 350,000 is the correct price.) Of course as you come down the scale in neighborhoods, the cost per square foot drops. A high end home, in a different area with nice views can be built for $500 per square foot.

Housing here for medium and low end is in demand. Yesterday we went out with staff from the Mayor of Kigali’s office to see the new area being built which incorporates low, medium and high end homes. There will be 5000 new homes when complete.

The low end homes have 2 bedrooms, a living room. The whole home measuring about 15 feet by 15 feet. That makes each bedroom about 7 feet by 7 feet, but I might be exaggerating on the high side. Each home has a cement slab of about 15 ft by 7 feet connecting it to an out building housing a toilet room, and shower room and a kitchen. The kitchen measuring about 5 feet by 5 feet. Each home will have a wooden fence separating it from it’s neighbor, which stands about 8 feet away from each other. The people who will be housed here will be relocated from the slum areas of the capitol, which is about 6 miles away.

At first the people were upset about being re-housed, but the city has worked long and hard they tell us to be sensitive to the needs. They are letting groups of neighbors move together and still be neighbors. They are also forming co-operatives so that the new housing area can also provide livelihood opportunities. The beauty of the newness and view compares favorably to the slum homes, so folks think it will work.

The interesting part for me was the location and the clustering of the housing. The site they chose is on a hill, and one of the most beautiful views of the city. Secondly, the low cost housing is situated such that it circles the hill along the lower rim. Directly above it will be medium cost housing in the $30,000 plus range, and above it will be the high end homes on the hill top. We asked questions about the clustering, whether schools would be integrated, what they anticipated from the social mix, and obviously they had thought it through thoroughly.

INTEREST IN RWANDA FROM OUTSIDERS
There seems to be a lot of faith in Rwanda now. The Americans are building a huge regional Embassy here, the Christian Family network is building a state of the art broadcasting center with a 300 seat auditorium on the hilltop (also designed by Sandrali,) the Chinese are in here building roads and infrastructure, the Swiss President was visiting last week – and it seems that a head of state has been here every month in 2007 which is an escalation of interest. We’ve met may expats living here and they all seem quite happy. They report a shortage of some goods by our standards, but fresh food is not a problem.

I met an American who is the head of the major hospital and he says that the President wants him to pull out every stop to make it a first class facility. The President, and the Parliament which is 49% female, pounce on corruption at every turn, and the streets are reported by many to be among the safest in the world.

OTHER INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Several investment projects have caught our attention. One is housing development, including roads and infrastructure. Another are a quarries. Another is Venture Capitol. If you have expertise in these areas and would like to start a dialogue with us, send us an email. Or you can call me on my cell phone here. My number is 011-250-0878-9774. Remember please that Noon in Los Angeles is 9 pm here. So best to call before Noon LA time or 3pm Eastern. We’re leaving Thursday, so call us asap if you have specific questions, or email me at ChristineHarvey@WomenForWealth.com.

ACCESS TO DECISION MAKERS
One of the delights in working here is the access to people that we’ve created. We’ve gone out of our way to host dinner parties here at our rented home, to throw parties and to have informal get togethers. Decision makers are still keen to get to know foreign investors and the government has made attempts to make it attractive. Investor bringing in over $250,000 do so tax free we are told. There are agencies who help with ‘one stop shopping’ for foreign investors, answering all questions and facilitating the process.

People on all levels are a delight to work with. Their negotiation skills are good too. The cleaning lady we hired for example, had negotiation skills that would make even David Finkel of Maui Millionaires proud. The private party we hired the car from were the same. So, as you see, entrepreneurship is ripe here! Every event you attend here is full of decision makers. Reverend Rick Warren was here from Saddleback Church and The Purpose Driven Life, and the room was teeming with government and business leaders keen to make Rwanda everything it can be. The same is true at every turn.

Before closing I want to give thanks to our investment team who accompanied us here – Madeleine Nichols of New York – attorney and real estate investor, Christina Willings of Canada – award winning film producer, Connie Kadansky of Phoenix AZ – sales and business trainer, of course Liz Uible, Co-Founder of WomenForWealth.com, business woman and real estate investor, and then there is me, Christine Harvey of Tucson AZ, real estate investor, author, business trainer and business woman.

I hope this gives you a feel for life here, the opportunity here and the fun we’ve had exploring the country and the people! We feel we’ve made some life long friends, and have been moved to new levels of global and human understanding.


Much love,
Chrisitne Harvey
Co-Founder, WomenForWealth.com

Convenience Integrity Can Bite You

Have you ever reflected on how ‘convenience integrity’ comes back to bite you?

I woke up this morning with a nagging feeling. I realized that twice this year I’ve hired subcontractors in my different businesses that I knew were not up to the job. In fact whenever I’ve ‘settled’ on a person who seemed to be under qualified, it was because my mind told me that there was no one out there who was perfectly suited for the job. AND this ‘convenience integrity’ doesn’t stop here – it happens in personal life too.

What I realize in reflection, is that the perfect person, meeting all the integrity requirements, was there all the time, and it was only my attitude of scarcity that blocked me from connecting with them.

That’s what I mean by CONVENIENCE INTEGRITY. That’s when you make a decision to do something despite your better judgment. You talk yourself into something by saying “Oh well, it’s probably not going to be a problem.” Maybe someone asks you to do something – like take on a volunteer position - and you agree, knowing in your heart that it’s not a perfect fit for you. Or maybe you have an invitation to do something with a group and there are signs that the group and you have different moral values - but you do it anyway because there seems to be an opportunity in it for you, and you ignore the future downside of those different moral values, and later it comes back to bite you.

I remember a friend of mine who was having horrible problems with an associate. The associate had a volatile personality in the office, but was fun loving at parties. Because she had met him at a party and saw his fun loving side first, she choose to ignore the signs of his volatility, and engaged his services anyway. Ignoring that cost her thousands of dollars and sleepless nights. It also cost her friends grief as she continued to ignore the downside of working with him, spilling her complaints onto her friends, and entangling them in her scenarios with him.

Or maybe, as I’ve done, you hire someone who gives signs of not working out, but your mind tells you that need them desperately. So you talk yourself into the shortcut of hiring them, rather than to look further for the right person. That’s ‘convenience integrity.’ It’s against your personal integrity. That nagging feeling is there but you choose to ignore it. You do it because it’s convenient for you at that moment. You do it saying, “Oh I’m sure there won’t be any problems,” while deep within you, you know differently.

An interesting point was made to me many years ago, and it was this: “When things start out badly with someone, they rarely get better.” Keeping that in mind has helped me numerous times. Everyone has different values and standards of integrity. By listening to our own better judgment and connecting with people of the highest standards of integrity, we can impact the world in the most positive way.

Here’s an example of integrity with ones self and courage you might want to consider. A friend of mine decided some years ago that most of her friends were of a negative mindset. She decided she needed to be surrounded by positive friends, and immediately acquired a new set of friends with a positive mindset. She didn’t block herself with a scarcity mindset by saying things like, “All people have some negativity, so I’d better stick with the friend I have.” No, she opened her mind to the possibility that people existed of her mindset, and immediately they appeared.

THREE-SECOND FOCUS TIP: Think now of any niggling situations with people in your life – things that perhaps make you toss and turn at night. You can’t quite get a handle on it, but it’s there gnawing away at you. Now think of that person in question. Were there signs you ignored about integrity differences? Or signs of incompetence? Or moral value differences?

By settling on these relationships, we compromise our own personal integrity, and we block possibilities for the world. Decide now – as my friend did above in acquiring a whole new set of friends, what you can do to change your situation, then promise yourself to listen to your own personal integrity next time. When you do, you’ll be operating at you highest level. Then you and the world will benefit from collective integrity.

From WomenforWealth.com … For over 80 articles on business, personal and community empowerment, go to www.WomenForWealth.com

How to Multiply Your Income 4-Fold

from Liz Uible

Good Morning!
I am sitting on the deck of our rental house in Rwanda
with the lush African landscape to my left, where a tree blooms
blue flowers and a fifty foot rubber tree towers above me. A
bird, like osprey, flies overhead and the capital city of Kigali
spreads out below and across the valley through the morning haze.

In today’s Wealth Tip there are some facts around creating
abundance in my finances that I want to share.
__________________________________________________

How to Multiply Your Income Almost 4-Fold

An article in the Wall Street Journal July 6th caught my
attention. “Giving Til It Hurts” discusses what people are
calling a ‘new kind of philanthropy,’ though I doubt the
phenomenon is truly new. It seems that recently charities have been
surprised by people who give a larger share of their net worth
away- seemingly out of proportion to the amount they have to
give.

These “stretch givers,” it seems, are making universities and
charitable foundations stand up and take notice. A 72 year-old,
retired conservator at the New York Met sells her small New York
apartment to give an arts organization that gave a $1 million
gift to an organization that had helped her early on with an
$8,000 grant. A tech tycoon, fallen on hard times, fulfill the
promise of a $25 Million gift, almost his entire net worth, to
AIDS research in the name of his dead brother. (The donor has
a young family.) A retired GE executive, rather than buying a
retirement home in Florida, lives modestly and gives away the
proceeds from her stock options, as she has given money all
of her career.

In all these cases, the gifts to charities made up the bulk of
the givers net worth.

Why? Arthur C. Brooks, the author of Who Really Cares, a book on
giving in America, shows that people who give are happier and
healthier than those who do not.

And ther is one more thing. According to Mr. Brooks's analysis,
$1.00 donated to charity led to $3.75 in extra income for the
donor. In other words, Givers make almost four times
more than non-givers. And this was reported in a very reputable,
conservative even, New York paper.

Do you get it yet? If you are not yet giving away a portion of
your income regularly, you are missing the wealth boat.

I admit I was surprised to see the size of that number.
I have studied the power of giving and enacted it in my own
life with great success. But a 375% return on such a fun
investment? That seems HUGE.

I remember when I first learned that giving sets in motion
universal principles of abundance. I didn’t think I could afford it.
I told my mentor that I would give money away when I had excess to
share. “If you don’t give,” she told me, “that will likely never
happen.” And she was right.

My first major gift was a ‘test,’ after I learned about this
principle. It was the first time I went out on faith and gave
10% of my income away and it was really uncomfortable to me.
I don’t even remember what organization I gave money to. I
do remember the result, because they were more
specific and tangible than I ever expected.

Within three weeks of that $2,000 gift leaving my hands, I came
home to find an unexpected check in the mailbox for almost
exactly the amount of my gift. I was surprised and delighted.
Some might call it coincidence, some will call it a fluke.
And that’s ok, they can stay poor. J I saw it simply as
powerful confirmation of a Universal Law that has power over us all.
As I continue to build my own wealth, I see the this principle in
even more powerful and surprising ways.

As I sit it East Africa, it makes me wonder. Is the reason for
U.S. prosperity somehow related to the fact that we give more to
charities, per capita, than any other population? I think it may be.

Have a wonderful, generous weekend!

Liz

P.S. For more article, check out womenforwealth.com/freearticles.html.

Handling Disfunction Can Propel You into the Billionaire Zone

from Christine Harvey

Most of us don't need help when things are going well.

But what do we do when things are going badly? Do we stew over it or do we have a plan in place, a method for handling each type of difficult situation?

Let's look at Billionaires for a moment. Do you think they could have built their empires without being able to confront an employee about a bad behavior? Or confront a supplier about an integrity issue? Or confront a business partner about a niggling disagreement? Of course not.

Here's an example. Recently Warren Buffet gave Bill and Melinda Gates billions of dollars to administer through their foundation at Microsoft. Wouldn't you like knowing that people have enough trust in you to give you billions to invest or control? Billionaires get where they are today by developing skills for handling ALL situations, not just the easy ones.

So if that's where we want to get financially, shouldn't we all be learning about how to handle dysfunction in ourselves and others? Of course we should, but we get so busy with 'everyday pressures' that we don't focus on getting answers to the development of these two critical strengths.

First we need to identify the areas we want to develop. The easiest way to do this is to look at what makes you stressed. Do you stress out over wanting to tell someone that things didn't go well, and you want to see it go differently next time? If so, presto - you've identified an area needing a methodology that works, so you can propel yourself to the Billionaire Zone.

Focus Tip for Today: Pay attention to what seems difficult or niggling in your life today. See what you stew over. If all goes well today, then watch for one tomorrow. By the end of the week, you're sure to find several. Jot them down. Then watch how other people handle those same situations. Some will handle them well. Others will not. It's the good role models that you want to follow. When you see someone handle it well, jot that down too. Then you'll have your own blueprint and methodologies started for moving into the Billionaire Zone.

FOCUS

from Liz Uible

Leigh, a WomenForWealth.com member, was telling me last week about Robert Kiyosaki's "FOCUS- Follow One Course Until Successful." As she pointed out, obstacles are overcome and objections melt away when focus is combined with determination, as in Kiyosaki's formula, above.

And that is where so many entrepreneurial minds get hung up. Instead of "following one course until successful," sometimes we follow-one-course-until-another-looks-better and then keep-on- that-course-until-another-interesting-business-idea-comes-along.

If that doesn't sound familiar to you, Congratulations.

I am continually amazed by how many entrepreneurs, myself included, create confusion, chaos and mediocrity in our lives simply by forgetting the original course and following bunny trails instead.

Follow One Course Until Successful applies to all areas of business.

Investing in Real Estate? A focus helps you learn a niche and talk with agents, sellers and other leads without confusing yourself or feeling overwhelmed.

Running a business? Do it without a Business Plan or 'Focus,' and it is like throwing darts in the dark... no telling what you will hit.

Training Employees? Choosing a course for them and sticking with it will help your employees be stable and effective.

Raising a family? Ditto.

Sometimes people resist creating a plan for fear that it will stifle their creativity or take too much time. I have certainly been guilty of this at different times in my business and investing. In reality, a business plan allows the details of running a business to be covered so that you can release your creativity in totally unexpected ways.

At WomenForWealth.com, a basic business plan has allowed Christine and me to have fewer meetings and to have the flexibility to do off-the-wall-creative adventures and know that our business is on track. FOCUS creates space for creativity.

That's why we are leaving for East Africa on Saturday... Stay tuned, this will be fun!