Hand in Hand is a Public Charitable Trust registered in the year 2002 with an initial focus on child labour elimination, education, and the empowerment of women. The organization has been in operation since 1988 in Kancheepuram District, Tamil Nadu, India. With time, their activities expanded per the demands from the rural communities in which they were working, and have come to include poverty reduction interventions in rural communities. HiH envisions a strategy that addresses the challenges of poverty and underdevelopment. It aim to build self-reliance among disadvantaged groups by alleviating poverty through sustainable income generating programs.
The ‘Jobs for Growth’ program from Hand in Hand links parent program ‘Self-Help Groups’ to banks to facilitate fair financial inclusion for entrepreneurs. When bank loans are inaccessible, insufficient, too costly, or too rigid, Hand in Hand tries to bridge the gap by proving low-cost credit for enterprise creation.
Hand in Hand believes that when loans are given to women for asset creation and income generation, it increases their status and strengthens their position in the family. Consequently, as women are empowered household poverty is reduced, and the health and education standards in the family increase. Furthermore, with the creation of enterprises, women migrate from poorly paid work to self-employment and financial independence.
A 2-year EverGift loan sponsored by TRIUM Legacy Fund.
Since Hand In Hand (HiH) was established in 2002, their unique Five Pillar approach has created 1,421,292 jobs. This year, TRIUM and EverGift have teamed up to provide HiH a $10k loan that will work to solve a specific problem in the community.
Hand in Hand identified their goal to ‘help women from HiH Self-Help Groups to scale up their enterprises‘. HiH had discovered a failure in small business financing in the region — a “missing middle” comprised of women who run medium-sized enterprises. These businesswomen are highly underserved in regard to access to loan capital. Their enterprises are too large for simple micro-loan products that HiH and other MFIs have had available, but can not be served by the formal banking sector because they lack the collateral required.
HiH set out to create a medium-sized loan that requires no collateral, a much more appropriate loan product for this “missing middle”. In providing this marginalized demographic with access to capital, this new HiH loan product fills a real need not previously addressed by market forces, government programs or other NGOs.
HiH identified 10 women from the regions of Kanchipuram and Chengalput to which HiH will loan 50,000INR, enough to create significant growth in a medium-sized enterprise. Chosen for their experience and training, these ten women are engaged in various kinds of micro enterprises such as tailoring, doll-making, and screen-printing. Each loan is to be repaid in 24 monthly installments at the rate of 15% interest on reducing balance basis.