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he United Nations Children’s Fund has released its 1986 Report on the State of the World’s Children, and the numbers were grim: 41,000 were dying every day from preventable diseases and malnutrition.
Two South Florida women, Kathleen Gordon and Ellen Kempler Rosen, launched a campaign back then that helped change the lives of thousands of children all over the world. Now they’re putting their activism to work for Miami, this time primarily on behalf of poor women. Now, as then, they know money moves mountains. Through Working Capital Florida, they’re lending money to poor men and women to start their own businesses. Their six-year-old project, they say, comes at an opportune time for Miami-Dade County, which has the highest unemployment rate in Florida.
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Their brand of joint activism, began two decades ago, when they spotted a little-known pot of money in Congress called the Child Survival Fund. Former US Rep. Dante Fascell was chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which controlled the fund. They were trying to get attention, and they did, Fascell said from his home in Tampa. It wasn’t easy. It took trips to Washington, letters and editorials. But in the end, Congress was convinced to increase its allotment for the fund--which has grown from $25 million to more than $ 700 million this year. The latest UNICEF report estimates that this money, which pays for immunization, promotion of breast-feeding, oral rehy dration therapy and more, helps save some 9,000 children every day. That’s 3.3 million lives a year.
Reaching out
What’s remarkable is that the Gordon and Kempler Rosen took their first stab at wholesale change in 1997, when they helped Sam Harris put together the organization that became RESULTS. Since Gordon and Kempler Rosen decided to bring micro-lending to Miami, Working Capital Florida has made more than $ 300,000 in very small loans to entrepreneurs with very small businesses. By year end, they want to help start an additional 600 businesses and would like to reach 3000 more borrowers next year. Working Capital’s annual budget is $ 300,000, primarily from government and private grants. A new three year $ 450,000 grant from the Mott-Foundation, a Michigan based organization that focuses on poverty and issues involving women, will allow Working Capital Florida to expand lending in to Broward and Palm Beach next year.
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The Micro-lending concept came to the United States nearly 25 years ago. It has been duplicated in cities nationwide, the Miami based organization is affiliated with the national group of the same name.
Gordon and Kempler Rosen’s inspiration began with the Grameen Bank and its founder Mohammad Yunus, the guru of the micro-loan movement. Yunus was creating jobs and self sufficiency in his native Bangladesh back in 1978. His bank would lend small sums of money primarily to women shunned by traditional banks because the women were too poor and had no credit history or collateral. The two Miami activists took a group to Bangladesh in 1992 to see Yunus’ work. A week after they returned to Miami, Hurricane Andrew hit south Florida.
In a sense out of tragedy came opportunity.
They borrowed $ 435,000 in federal hurricane recovery money targeted for black and Hispanic business and launched Working Capital. “We were terrified we knew nothing of this stuff when we started.”
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Many single mothers
Money borrowers at Working Capital are single mothers mostly black and Hispanic. Typical is Betties Ferguson who started out with a $ 500 loan in 1994 and opened Art Expressions in Perrine. The business grew and Ferguson has borrowed a total of $ 6,000 in those three years. “I had tried a few places before and was turned down for loans.” Ferguson said ,”We are still here and we are growing. I see a bright future.”
Gordon a full time volunteer who is chairwoman of Working Capital has been wrestling with management upheaval, program designs and funding changes. But the program has been overcoming growing pains.
When Gordon and Kempler Rosen met in the 1970s, Gordon had just moved to South Florida with her family from Los Angles. There she owned three art galleries and a wholesale art business. Kempler Rosen developed Working Capital with Gordon and still attends meeting and conferences, but is now teaching English at the Marine and Science Technology (MAST) High School on Virginia Key. Years ago, she was the beneficiary of an unknown benefactor who financed her college studies at the University of Miami. It helps explain her passion for helping others.
At a summit of micro-credit lenders that RESULTS organized this year in Washington, D.C, 3,000 people from 137 countries showed up. Gordon and Kempler Rosen met with staff from all of Florida’s congressional delegation - as they do every year. They are seen as some force in the state, Harris said.
“Working Capital remains a model for other organizations,” said Lynn Allison, director of Micro Enterprise Florida, a state public/ private economic development agency focusing on very small businesses. “They are doing fabulous things there that might be the way to go for micro.”
By Yves Golon.
For more information:
Working Capital Florida is at 3000 Biscayne Blvd, suite 101A, Miami, 33137, and can be reached by telephone at 305-438-1407, or by E-mail at workcap@belleouth.net
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Extracted from : Miami Herald, November 28,1998
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