Emerging hope Lanka: Empowering rural women in Sri Lanka

• Main Authors: TAN, Wee Liang, CHEAH, Sin Mei
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: Social entrepreneurship; rural entrepreneurship; Microfinance; Non-profit organizations; Women; Empowerment; Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations; Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cases_coll_all/312; https://smu.sharepoint.com/sites/admin/CMP/cases/SMU-20-BATCH%20%5BPDF-Pic%5D/SMU-20-0020%20%5BEmerging%20Hope%5D/SMU-20-0020%20%5BEmerging%20Hope%5D.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Emerging Hope Lanka was founded by Nilushika Silva Jayaweera (“Nilu”), a domestic worker-turned-entrepreneur in 2016. She had left her hometown in Sri Lanka, orphaned and penniless, to work in Singapore some 16 years earlier. Her determination and thirst for knowledge was the driving force that led her to persevere through the tough times, and she eventually returned to her birthplace to start a tea business as well as Emerging Hope Lanka, a not-for-profit organisation that educates and economically empowers poor rural women in Sri Lanka. Drawing inspiration from her own life journey, Nilu had established Emerging Hope Lanka to motivate women who are struggling with poverty to be financially independent. In March 2020, as she looks back on the four years of running Emerging Hope Lanka, Nilu feels a deep sense of fulfilment. Some 55 women had graduated from her micro-entrepreneurship programme and gone on to start their own businesses running mini-marts, spice-packing, dressmaking, etc. For these women, it was a big step towards supporting their families as they had been financially reliant on their husbands in the past. While she would like to reach out to more women, Nilu has to evaluate cautiously the loan requests of prospective participants in her programme. A case in point is a debt-laden mother of two children, who is urgently in need of financial assistance. While wanting to help, Nilu however senses that a one-time loan may not be the best solution and the woman may return to ask for more funds. How can she help the woman to tide through this difficult period, while instilling the notion of financial independence to ensure future sustainability of the family’s livelihood? The learning objectives include a consideration of a social enterprise seeking to assist disadvantaged women, the challenges faced embarking on this venture as a woman social entrepreneur, an evaluation of the different types of microfinancing programmes, risk management in microfinancing programmes, applicant assessment of microloans on a case-by-case basis and determining the self-sustainability of a small microfinancing programme.