SOFALA PROVINCE, MOZAMBIQUE – There is an invisible line cutting across our world. We’re not talking latitude or longitude.
This is a line that makes the difference between disease prevention and premature death. A line that determines if your children will be attending school or if they will be undernourished. A worldwide line that one in four people live under.

This is the line of poverty.

In Mozambique, nearly 40% of the population lives under the poverty line. This means that seven million people are making less than $1 a day. It means seven million people lack access to medical care, education, clean water, and expendable income in times of emergencies.

What if there was a way to move that line. Or even, to erase it?
Working together with community leaders, FH has begun over 100 local savings and credit groups in rural Mozambique. These savings and credit groups are allowing people once labeled “poor” and “vulnerable” to reclaim dignity, to have access to loans, to begin small business, and to have the means to provide for their families and save for their futures.
Before the founding of savings and credit groups most people in rural communities didn’t have access to loans, and those who did were charged 50% interest during repayment. Now, as members of local savings groups, all participants can borrow with a 10% interest rate, opening up countless opportunities for small business development and significant return on their investments.

Once poor communities are now seeing trade happening, shops opening, and businesses developing.

Change has come.

It wasn’t from hand outs. It wasn’t from top down development. Change is happening in Mozambique because of mothers, fathers, mayors, and pastors, who are choosing to work together, trusting each other, and investing in their communities and the lives of their neighbors. Through savings and credit groups Mozambicans are finding a way to cross over this poverty line, and it’s beginning to disappear.