Welcome
“...the price of poverty—in lives lost, economic opportunities forgone and setbacks in human development including the spread of HIV/AIDS is too high to be ignored” — Bernadette Ngoh, Founder of GHAPE
GHAPE is a registered non-profit, non-governmental and apolitical association in Cameroon. Our mission is to provide holistic empowering tools to the poor especially to underprivileged women and young people. Our motto is Service & Development. Our innovative approach uses microfinance and other strategies to solve the problem of poverty. From inception we have been providing financial and non-financial services simultaneously to our target clientele, the underprivileged with a historical repayment rate of one hundred percent (100%). Today some of our borrowers can afford most basic needs. Our borrowers are no longer waiting for "hand-outs", they are contributing to economic growth. Our goal is to reach out to the hundreds of poor households who need investment capital to change their situation. Your donation will help open the potentials hidden in this category of our population. We can each contribute in making the world a better place to live in.
GHAPE is a non-governmental, not-for-profit and apolitical organization working towards a society where the poor
especially women and young people are empowered to develop their potential, creativity, and skills as productive and dynamic members of their community and participate fully at every level of development, both individually and collectively, promoting values through a holistic approach.
Currently there are 18 centers at the main branch in Bamenda, Cameroon and 10 centers at the branch in Belo, Cameroon. Each center is made up of 8 groups of 5 people. In August 2008, GHAPE had around 1,000 clients and had approximately $174,000 in loans and cash.
Individuals who wish to apply for a loan must first find four others who are interested in taking out a loan and form a group. Each group is responsible for one another’s defaults. This structure protects GHAPE from high risk clients. Borrowers will choose their group based on other’s risk and potential for success. Also, they will be careful not to enter into a group with a high risk or unreliable person as they will have to pay GHAPE for the high risk borrower’s losses. This group formation allows GHAPE to effectively reach out to those who need the loans the most—the poorest of the poor—as GHAPE is able to focus on the needs as opposed to worrying about their financial risk.
In order to become a GHAPE borrower, among other criteria, training at one of the centers must be completed. This training involves business skills such as marketing, as well as life skills such as basic health practices. Further training is required after successfully repaying each loan; as a client completes more loans, the training difficulty level increases. For more on the steps required to become a GHAPE borrower, go to More Information.
The loan sizes increase as a borrower successfully repays loans. First and second time borrowers are restricted to 40,000—200,000
FCFA ($86 - $430 US). Third and fourth time borrowers are able to take out loans between 100,000 and 500,000 FCFA ($215 - $1075 US).
Once borrowers have successfully repaid five or more loans, they are able to take out loans from 500,000 to 1,000,000 FCFA ($1075 - $2150 US).
To enhance the quality of life, increased incomes must be spent on the realization of set-goals.
This has necessitated the development of a socio-economic development agenda, which is a pledge by GHAPE borrowers.They are called the 12 Decisions.
The 12 Decisions:
- We shall educate our children and ensure that we earn to pay for their education .
- We shall space birth and stop irresponsible sexual activities. We shall look after our health.
- We shall embark on preventive measure rather than curative measures
- We shall grow vegetables all the year round. We shall eat plenty of them and sell the surplus. We shall eat and provide our families with balanced diets.
- We shall build and use at least good pit latrines.
- We shall refrain from all harmful traditional practices.
- We shall dispose household refuse in confined places. We shall live in healthy environments.
- We shall cultivate a habit of saving in order to undertake bigger investments for higher incomes.
- We shall be ready to help each other. If anyone is facing difficulties, we shall all help her or him.
- We shall all go to help restore discipline in any centre where breach of discipline is made known to us.
- We shall strive to follow and advance the motto of GHAPE: Service and Development.
- We shall be Ambassadors for the 12 Decisions.
Mission Statement
Our mission is to provide the highest quality adaptable holistic empowering tools in a caring and supportive environment to the underprivileged. To realize this mission, GHAPE engages borrowers and members of household to be active and responsible architects of their own destiny while offering a broad range of financial and non-financial services simultaneously.