Brick By Brick
Homes for HOPE partners with the building industry to invest in places like Zambia, where 54% of the population lives below the poverty line, and people are faced with impossible choices – like whether to purchase nutritious food or send a child to school. Now, with access to biblical training, savings services, and loans, families like Dickson’s (pictured) don’t need to make these choices.
Previously, whenever a financial need arose for Dickson, his wife, and their seven children, he shares: “I was despairing when I had to borrow from [moneylenders] and pay back double… I used to be very stressed.”
Today, through his HOPE Zambia savings group, Dickson saves his own funds and repays small loans at a low interest rate. Dickson uses loans to invest in his farm year-round—something not possible before. He is also steadily building a new home for his family, molding each brick by hand. Now, Dickson dreams beyond his family’s day-to-day needs: “I’m optimistic about the future, and I plan to buy a plot in town, build a house on it, and rent it out.”
Seeing the changes that Dickson has experienced, many neighbors have become interested in joining a savings group, and Dickson volunteers his time to lead several of these groups:
“The community has seen a lot of changes in my family… Now, I have goats, and I’m making bricks for the house which I’m building in the village.”
If you or someone you know would love to invest in hard-working entrepreneurs like Dickson, please contact Homes for HOPE’s executive director at (717) 719-0313 or mbaehr@homes4hope.org.