Microloans
Read new project update about our COAF visit
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Read new project update about our COAF visit 〰️
📣 Project Updates
Nov 4, 2023 - COAF Visit
On November 4, 2023, we traveled from Rome to Yerevan, where we had a productive meeting with Shushan Danielyan from the non-profit organization Children of Armenia Fund (COAF). This meeting marked a review of our project's success in honey harvesting and production, a venture that even attracted the attention of Armenia's prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan. Looking ahead to the summer of 2025, we plan to reinvest the repaid loans into further expanding our beekeeping initiatives in the Lori region. This strategy involves reviewing the applications collected by COAF and selecting new beneficiaries through an interview process we created that helped us select the initial five loan recipients. Our model's scalability and replicability have now begun to draw potential investors interested in supporting similar microloan ventures. Our ongoing collaboration with COAF aims to create more small-scale projects focused on rural economic development, particularly attracting the Armenian Diaspora Youth in these initiatives.
Photo credit to COAF
🌍✈️ Big News from Armenia! 🐝🍯 Just landed in Yerevan from Rome and had an amazing meeting with Shushan Danielyan from COAF. We're thrilled to share that our microloan honey project is buzzing 🐝 with success! 🌟
🤝 Even the Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, is a fan - he was spotted with Bees honey! 📷 This summer, we're reinvesting the repaid loans to expand our beekeeping initiative in Lori. 🌿
🔄 Our project is growing, attracting investors for more microloan ventures. Here's to empowering rural Armenia! 🇦🇲 #MicroEngage #Beekeeping #SustainableDevelopment #Armenia
Jan 6, 2023 - Microloan project launch story featured on Asbarez.
Our Story
Packing backpacks year after year forced us to think more about the circumstances facing rural Armenia. We began reaching out to business leaders, asking them how we can assist small village communities beyond simply volunteering for projects and raising funds. Specifically, we wanted to know how we can make it possible for villagers to open or expand businesses, purchase tools, livestock, etc. to increase the monthly income they can earn. What would a villager need to take the production of their goods such as dairy beyond producing enough to feed their household to a level that can be a source of income? What if with a small loan, two additional cows can be purchased allowing the farmer to sell his milk for a profit? Through our conversations as well as our independent research the microlending system became our focus. Microlending provides small low-interest or no-interest loans to low-income individuals. A system that has been effective in less developed countries. Once we figured out the method of assistance our next challenge was finding the candidates. We didn’t want to just drop into a village and provide funds. We connected with the Children of Armenia Fund, a non-profit organization whose focus has been providing kids in rural areas educational opportunities. When we contacted them they were intrigued by our goal. In the past COAF had given grants to villagers in rural areas but mostly on bigger projects. Although what we proposed was different from COAF’s previous projects, our goal for improving the standard of living in rural areas aligned.
Over the next few months, we communicated with the COAF team over Zoom and email creating a game plan and timeline for our project. During this time COAF collected business plans from the local villagers for us to review. Having COAF and their team was instrumental because they knew the locals and had an understanding of what types of businesses would have a higher chance of success. Prior to our arrival, we decided our funding would focus on dairy farmers and beekeeping. When we arrived in Armenia we went to Debet a small village in the Lori region, we spent significant time getting to know the region. Away from our hometown of Los Angeles and 3 hours away from the capital of Armenia we realized that it was hard to make decisions on local businesses without fully understanding how the economy worked in the area. We visited dairy farms, cheese-making facilities, bee farms, and other small businesses - we saw large successful operations in the region as well as very small farms. After several trips around the various villages including Debet, Desegh, Odzun, Dzoraguge, and Alaverdi the business proposals had some context.
Since our initial plan was to focus the loans on dairy and bee-keeping candidates we needed to gain an understanding of both industries in the area. Our research led us to Dsegh a cheese factory that was preparing to open on June 27th. We learned firsthand that poor road conditions are a challenge to businesses and cause tremendous delays. We learned about sanitation, and the various phases of cheese production starting with the arrival of the milk to the various rooms the milk travels for the milk to finally turn into cheese.
Assessing beekeeping farms
The next phase was gaining an understanding of the beekeeping industry. To better evaluate and understand the bee-keeping proposals we traveled back to the capital city of Yerevan and met with Vartan Urutyan, rector at Armenian National Agrarian University and Professor at University at Texas A&M. He helped us gain an understanding of the beekeeping industry and guided us towards what critical questions we should ask our applicants during the loan interview.
After compiling all the information gained from our visits to the cheese factory, and various bee farms and speaking with experts and local producers in both industries we concluded our best course of success was to focus on candidates applying for loans in honey production. We returned to Debet and interviewed all the bee-keeping candidates.
The top candidates were Satenik and Ani Petrosyan, sisters who had gone through COAF’s programs for the village youth. The sisters wanted an additional ten hives but they were new to beekeeping. We consulted with a few locals who were expert beekeepers and structured a loan that would provide 6 additional hives giving them a total of ten hives which would allow them to earn an income and be able to pay back the loan. They could use their existing bee hives to create another hive which would give them 10 total for this season. In a male-dominated field, these sisters really have the drive necessary for success. They are young and willing to learn from COAF’s summer beekeeping program which we recommended they enroll in to further their beekeeping education. Equally important to ensuring their success is a supportive family - when we visited their family farm and spoke to her dad he was very proud of his daughter's venture and their determination to start this business. Another positive factor is Ani and Satenik are good at using social media. We created and launched an Instagram account for them called SheesBees Honey and will continue to work with them throughout the year to gain a social media presence. With our combined efforts we believe Satenik & Ani will be a great success.
Karlen Stepanyan is a 48-year-old villager living in Debet, Armenia. He submitted an application requesting a loan to resume his beekeeping. When we arrived at his home for the interview we were completely blown away by his jaw-dropping story. What was not in his application was that he was a retired Veteran of 15 years who re-enlisted to fight in the 44-day war against Azerbaijan. During the war, his unit was bombed by drones, causing hearing loss in his right ear. He was also a POW and was held in Baku, Azerbaijan for 33 days until being released with the help of the European Union. We discovered that when he was called to serve, his existing bee hives did not survive his absence. When he retired, he received a $1,500 USD lump sum for his pension. As a primary caretaker of his mother, he would like to apply his knowledge of beekeeping and begin a beekeeping business. We agreed that this would need to be Karlen’s primary income, he would need to start with 10 hives to generate enough income to support himself and his mother.
Karlen, retired 15 year veteran & recent POW recipient of micro loan
The third micro loan was granted to a bee hive box builder who had insufficient tools to expand his hive box-making business. The fourth and fifth recipients will be graduates of the COAF beekeeping program. We also created our first cohort of Armenian beekeepers colleagues: four beginners with one veteran leader to ensure our loan applicant’s success.
Sustainability - We began this project intending to make loans in the region to boost local businesses. Our goal was not to get a better return on our investment but rather to do something transformational that would help the village. To make our project more meaningful we decided that the funds that are returned would stay within the beekeeping program. Essentially the funds that are repaid will help support new applicants. To make this structure work we collaborated with COAF and their in-house attorney and learned about the nuances of Armenian laws as they pertain to NGOs and charities. Because it would not be efficient for us to create an entity to do a peer to peer loan we settled on doing two agreements: an agreement with COAF and COAF would have agreements with the recipients of the funds.
Before starting this project, we never thought we would be working on an Armenian contract where payback terms include a section where fund recipient can pay back in either cash or with honey they produced. This was an amazing experience, we made lasting friendships, surveyed various agricultural businesses and we learned that projects like this can't be done over email or Zoom calls. The key to success lies in investing your time engaging with applicants where everyone is working collaboratively to meet the project objective.
Future plans
We are already in the process of developing our summer project for next year. We want to test if the tea tree (manuka) shrub which produces manuka honey can be successfully farmed in the Lori region, we are also exploring ideas regarding improving tourism in the area, and helping with modernization of sanitation in the dairy business.
Read more about our story featured on Pasadena Now.