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The
SEM Fund, or the Senegal Ecovillage Microfinance Fund, is a 501(c)(3)
nonprofit dedicated to alleviating poverty by providing affordable
business loans aimed at strengthening the business skills and
livelihoods of highly motivated microentrepreneurs that lack access to
the commercial banking system. Currently, our focus is the
thirty-eight poverty-stricken villages in the West African nation of
Senegal, which are a part of the Global
Ecovillage Network, Senegal.
The
SEM Fund’s mission is to help break the cycle of poverty afflicting the
people of developing countries. We are based on the premise
that effective and sustainable development can be achieved by opening
up opportunities for poor people to control their own economic
futures. We do not provide handouts that create dependencies.
We
believe that in order to generate the greatest impact, as much of our
funding as possible should be used for the communities in which we
work. Therefore, donations to The SEM Fund go towards
expanding our reach throughout Senegal and providing loans which once
repaid will be loaned out again, thus creating a revolving loan fund.
As
part of our commitment to complete transparency, The SEM Fund has had
its operational information and financial reports audited by CICE Senegal and
published by the MIX Market, a third-party microfinance reporting
organization. Click here to review SEM's
MIX Market Profile.
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Featured Entrepreneur
When Jacqueline Diedhiou's group received their loan they partitioned the money into groups of 25,000 CFA ($50), of 50,000 CFA ($100), or 75,000 CFA ($150), which were then distributed to the different group members. The different members work and function independently, while sharing the responsibility of repayment. They all sell mainly household products, but they do not all sell the same things.
Jacqueline sells soap, pens, erasers, notebooks, basins, and SOS pads. (more...) |
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What Clients Are Saying About SEM
“The members of our group have now become the nutritionists of the village, because the loan that we’ve received from SEM has allowed the villagers to supply themselves with vegetables and other food items that couldn’t be found in the village before we started our business. For this reason we thank you very much.” (more...) |
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