Frequently Asked Questions

What is Self-Help International?

What does Self-Help do?

What’s the difference between ‘development’ and ‘relief’ organizations?

Who funds Self-Help?
What percentage of total funding received by Self-Help goes toward administrative expenses?
How can companies/individuals support or get involved with Self-Help?

What good can $50 or $100 do?

What is QPM?

Is QPM a ‘GMO’?
What does “microcredit” mean?

What’s a Women’s microcredit group?

What are the ’16 Decisions’?
What are the principal benefits of participating in a microcredit group?
Why does Self-Help lend primarily to women?
Does Self-Help offer any kind of training in business practices?
What is Self-Help’s overall loan repayment rate?
Can Self-Help’s programs become self-sufficient?

What is Self-Help International?

Self-Help International (SHI) devotes its efforts to alleviating world hunger and poverty by providing opportunities to assist farm families to become self-reliant. Since its inception, Self-Help has touched hundreds of thousands through training, education and small business opportunities in developing countries so families can have better lives. 

Founder, Vern Schield, established Self-Help as an ecumenical, non-profit 501 (c) (3) organization in 1959. Raised on a farm during the Depression, Schield observed hard working farmers in developing countries unable to get ahead due to limited means and inadequate farming practices. He developed a small, sturdy, simple tractor called the “Self-Helper” that was built and shipped to nearly 50 countries over thirty years.

As time and world conditions changed, Self-Help began fulfilling its mission from a new way. It discontinued tractor production, at the request of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dr. Norman Borlaug turned to Ghana, West Africa, to devote its efforts in training farmers in agricultural development at the grass roots level. Through training and education, SHI’s local organization promoted the benefits of growing Quality Protein Maize (QPM) as seed to increase yields, and to improve diets. The QPM program includes improving cultivation practices, introducing post-harvest technology, providing marketing tools and the concept of savings, and providing basic instruction in nutrition and family healthcare. In 1999, the women’s micro-credit enterprise program began, which is designed to empower women through increased income through businesses. In 2005, SHI-initiated an infant-preschool children’s feeding project using QPM porridge with pinches of barley malt in an effort to alleviate malnutrition. 

Working in Ghana since 1989, Self-Help carries out its mission in cooperation with the Ghanaian Ministries of Agriculture and Health and other non-government organizations. Self-Help currently works with Ghanaian farm families from more than 50 rural communities in 19 of 20 districts.

In 1999, Self-Help added Nicaragua to its program using Ghana as its model. Training and education mirrors much of Ghana’s programs. SHI’s local staff now introduces and promotes the growth of Quality Protein Maize seed to improve crops and nutrition for Nicaraguans; women’s micro-credit enterprises increase income; and a children’s feeding project targets malnutrition. Self-Help works closely with the Ministries of and related to Agriculture and Health. Combined efforts have increased QPM production from five farmers in 1999 to 20,000 farmers eight years later, with numbers continuing to increase.

What does Self-Help do?

1.    Improving Agricultural Opportunities: Self-Help’s primary crop focus is QPM, (quality protein maize) a naturally-occurring corn variety with greater protein absorption and higher yields than traditional corn grown in those countries. Self-Help has not only started the widespread use of QPM in Ghana and Nicaragua (improving income and nutrition), but have provided education to local farmers on sustainable farming, mechanization, grain drying and milling and seed storage — reducing crop loss by 37%.

2.    Feeding/Nutrition Project for Rural Weanlings and Preschool Children: Results from 2007 show notable, healthy weight gains of those 2,500 children consistently eating one meal a day of higher-digestible protein (QPM-based) porridge. Diets, food handling, sanitation and general hygiene are improving through education and monitoring – in cooperation with local organizations.

3.    Microcredit Enterprises… Small Business Loans to Women: Women play major roles in households, farms and businesses in developing countries. They want to improve their lives but are limited by lack of credit at reasonable interest rates. Nearly 1,000 women have taken part in the Microcredit program to date… with 97% repayment of loans and interest! Successful businesses include: Palm oil processing, pig and poultry farming, baking goods and earthenware pottery and trade.  

What’s the difference between ‘development’ and ‘relief’ organizations?

Relief projects and organizations that focus on them are designed to provide immediate assistance after a disaster. Development projects and organizations (like Self-Help) include physical projects as well as non-physical programs. They commit to an area and a group of people to support them in their growth and development.

There are, unfortunately, too many examples where relief recipients quickly become dependent on handouts, thus creating somewhat of a third-world welfare system. This can leave the recipients worse off than when the programs were started.

On the other hand, properly executed development programs that require the recipient’s direct input and involvement foster a feeling of ownership. These programs can help recipients sustain themselves on a long-term basis. Once this occurs, the development organization can cease its operations and move to another location of need. Sustainability should be a huge factor in an organization’s mission.

Who funds Self-Help?

Self-Help funds its work through a variety of sources: Individuals 36.3%, Corporations 21.8%, Trustees 14.7%, Grants 11.3% and Churches 11.2% with the remainder from interest, dividends and miscellaneous sources. Individuals (36.3% + 14.7%) make up over half of our income!

What percentage of total funding received by Self-Help goes toward administrative expenses?

Administrative costs, including fundraising, are a small part of the overall expenses. For the fiscal year ended December 31, 2008, Self-Help’s fundraising costs represented 14.9% of total expenses, with general and administrative costs of 8.5%, leaving over 76% of the budget for direct program expenses.

What good can $50 or $100 do?

Because of the low-cost approach Self-Help employs, you can feed a child for an entire year for $55. That’s about 22 cents a meal.

To the lowest-income entrepreneurs in the developing world, $50 is a fortune. (70% of all Nicaraguans earn less than $725 a year.) They can invest that money to make their labor far more productive. They might buy a palm oil press so that they can process palm oil faster with less strain on their bodies, than by hand-pressing. They might invest in a used refrigerator to keep the produce they sell from going bad overnight. They might buy clay for making pots, at wholesale prices, so they make more on every item. Economist Milton Friedman once said that “the poor stay poor, not because they’re lazy, but because they have no access to capital.” Self-Help provides them with capital to help them break out of poverty.

What is QPM?

Quality Protein Maize is corn that…

• Doubles the protein digestibility as traditional corn;
• Has 90% digestible protein as compared to skim milk;
• Increases crop yields as compared to traditional corn;
• Reduces stunting (in weaning children especially) that is often caused by protein/calorie deficient diets;
• Allows one-stomach animals to grow and gain weight faster.

Maize (corn) is a food staple found in many developing countries. In addition to supplying needed calories, maize is often the single largest source of protein intake for the poor. However, children weaned on normal maize receive protein with low levels of two nutritionally-vital amino acids, lysine and tryptophan.

Discovering this limitation led to 30 years of research. Scientists at Purdue University (USA) identified a maize strain with a gene that increased levels of these amino acids. Scientists at CIMMYT (Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo, Int.) in Mexico continued efforts to improve its viability. The new variety was named Quality Protein Maize (QPM).

Here’s what Dr. Norman Borlaug, Nobel Prize laureate and founder of the World Food Prize, says about Self-Help’s efforts in Ghana which include training local farmers to grow QPM:

“I endorse this project because it is a simple and practical solution to alleviating hunger. I recognize the benefits of QPM and barley malt to babies and young children in developing countries, such as Ghana, where corn porridge is the typical weaning supplement. In addition, the project trains Ghanaians to manage the feeding centers and includes affordable and available food source (QPM and barley malt) that allows project sustainability.”

Is QPM a ‘GMO’?

Quality Protein Maize (QPM) promoted by Self-Help is not a genetically modified organism (GMO) as it is commonly defined (or stigmatized?) today. Ever since Gregor Mendel began cultivating, testing and studying pea plants in the 1800s, humans have understood more about how traits are inherited. Parents pass characteristics on to their progeny in predictable and sometime random combinations. Scientists at Purdue University and the Centro Internacional de Mejoramiento de Maiz y Trigo (CIMMYT) in Mexico began in the 1960s to identify a strain of maize with twice the normal level of two needed amino acids (proteins), lysine and tryptophan.

They were able to isolate those “good” genes and reduce the “bad” characteristics, i.e., poor yields, slow drying, soft kernels, etc., though years of trials and selective breeding. Through these efforts, QPM is having a profound and continuing impact in the battle against human malnutrition around the world.

What does “microcredit” mean?

Microcredit means providing a small amount ($50 to $300) of working capital to be repaid weekly or monthly. This practice has fueled the productivity of the world’s poor majority. Steady jobs and reliable sources of income elude the very poor. To get by, many people create and run their own very small businesses—"microenterprises"—in the unregulated, "informal" sector. They might sell produce at the market or press palm oil, or bake bread. Many poor people in developing countries live in rural areas and work either as small-holder farmers, as re-sellers of farmers’ produce, raising livestock, or in another area of agricultural production or marketing. Microenterprises may be small, but their cumulative impact is huge. Depending on the country, microenterprises employ an estimated 30-80 percent of the working population. Microcredit enables people to work their way out of poverty. Small amounts of capital—typically $50 to $300—can make the difference between absolute poverty and a thriving little business generating enough income to feed the family, send kids to school, and build decent housing.

What’s a Women’s microcredit group?

The Women’s microcredit group is the form of microlending that was pioneered by Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus… outlined in his book, Banker to the Poor. A support group consists of 10-20 members—always women—who meet weekly or biweekly to provide themselves with three essential services:

• small self-employment loans-–as small as $50 or $100--to start or expand their own businesses, as well as repayment opportunities
• updates on current outstanding loans
• a community-based system that provides mutual support and encourages personal empowerment.

Group members recite and are encouraged to memorize the ’16 Decisions’. Group members guarantee each others’ loans and run a democratic organization. The group guarantee is important, since borrowers don’t have the kind of collateral a commercial bank would be seeking to lend them money. Groups represent grassroots democracy in action; members elect their own leaders, manage the funds, and are fully responsible for loan supervision, including enforcing penalties for non-compliance.

What are the ’16 Decisions?

1.  We shall follow and advance discipline, unity, courage and hard work.

2.  We shall bring prosperity to our families.

3.  We shall not live dilapidated houses.

4.  We shall grow, eat and sell vegetables.

5.  We shall plant many seedlings as possible during the plantation season.

6.  We shall keep our families small, minimize expenditures and look after our health.

7.  We shall educate our children.

8.  We shall keep our children and environment clean.

9.  We shall build and use pit-latrines.

10.  We shall drink potable water.

11.  We shall not practice child marriage and shall make marriage affordable for our sons and daughters.

12.  We shall not tolerate injustice in our societies.

13.  We shall collectively undertake bigger investments for higher incomes.

14.  We shall help each other always.

15.  We shall jointly instill discipline in our centers.

16.  We shall take part in all social activities collectively.

What are the principal benefits of participating in a microcredit group?

Self-Help programs break the vicious cycle of poverty. Without credit, low-income people may work hard but stay poor because of a lack of opportunity and capital. Self-Help borrowers receive working capital so that their efforts can become more productive. As they become more productive, they increase their income and are able to accumulate savings for other expenses and for emergencies.

Most importantly by participating in a microcredit group, mothers can better care for their children and extended families. Self-Help borrowers often say they spend increased earnings on children first, improving nutrition, health, and educational status, in that order. As nutrition and health improve, women then invest income in education, followed by home improvements.

Having a steady income and a savings account raises a woman’s self-esteem and her status, even in societies where women are consistently treated as second-class citizens.

Why does Self-Help lend primarily to women?

For several reasons. First, the feminization of poverty is a worldwide trend. Seventy percent of the world’s poor are women, largely because of their limited access to education or to productive resources like land and credit. Another worldwide trend is an increase in woman-headed households, in which a mother provides the sole support for her children. Most victims of severe poverty are children. According to UNICEF, at least half of the 12 million children aged five or younger who die each year, die from malnutrition associated with severe poverty. The most direct way to improve children's’ survival and welfare is to strengthen their own mothers’ ability to take care of them.

In some cultures, men initially express fear of women becoming empowered from their participation in the groups. However, after a few loan cycles, most men realize that group activities benefit the family as a whole, and so they support the effort. In some instances, men even become partners or employees in their wives’ enterprises.

Does Self-Help offer any kind of training in business practices?

There is no formalized, network-wide training curriculum. Self-Help employs Project Officers who have the responsibility of supervising the microcredit groups. The Project Officers provide encouragement, training, support and correction as situations warrant.

What is Self-Help’s overall loan repayment rate?

Despite the fact that we’re working with some of the world’s poorest, the repayment rate is outstanding. Our average, on-time repayment is more than 97 percent – much better than most commercial banks expect or experience.

Can Self-Help’s programs become self-sufficient?

Self-Help International’s aim is to help all in-country programs become self-sufficient – i.e., reach the point that they can cover all their costs and rely on their own resources or the commercial capital markets instead of donations and grants. This can greatly expand their outreach to the poorest of the working poor. Ghana currently provides 23% of its own annual budget and Nicaragua 10%. The in-country staff is making steady progress towards self-sufficiency.