Small Business Loans

Why Offer a Start-Up Business Loan?

India Direct believes in sustainable aid, supplying those we help with long-term solutions to provide for their future.

We help families to help themselves by giving them the means to open a business, or learn a new trade or skill. These families have often suffered the loss of a ‘bread-winner’ or serious injury. In India there is little welfare support from the government, and many families in this position have to beg or steal for food. At India Direct we aim to help families who are in this position. For example, in the past we have provided training to widows in tailoring; offered scholarships to University or College to children who leave us; given resources to open up a local shop; helped our leavers to find expert apprenticeships with plumbers, electricians, engineers and other professionals.

In this way, we help a larger number of people than if we only offered short-term support. We also avoid becoming burdened with a large number of people whom the charity regularly supports. Those we help will often return to the charity to give their time and expertise to help children from Joy & Bethel to learn a trade or skill.

You could help in this way. We often have requirements for business loans, and are fully accountable – you will know exactly which people your money is helping and we will give you regular updates on how the business is running. Contact us now for more information or read below to learn about a recent story of a family requiring a start-up business loan.

The Story of a Start-Up Business Loan

One of the families India Direct have helped live in a small tiled-roof house belonging to their grand-parents. The house has only one room with a single light. In here, the family must cook in the corner under a damaged roof and surrounded by broken, bare brick walls. In the rainy season the house is drenched and regularly flooded, so that the children and their mother are sometimes forced to go to sleep in their neighbours’ house. They are often left homeless after the rains.

The father was the bread-winner of the family, working in a company lifting sacks of grain. One day at work, a large, heavy bag fell on him, fracturing his neck. He became bed-ridden, so was unable to work and to earn money to feed his family.

The mother started to work as house-maid, earning only 30 rupees (30p) per day with which she had to feed her children and take care of her husband. The money was not enough for food, clothes, education or access to medical care.

The family came to Joy home to discuss their options, asking how best to make a living. India Direct agreed to help them to set up a small shop.

The start-up costs of the shop were around £600, the same as the cost of keeping two children in one of our children’s homes for a year. The family is now able to pay its rent and to restock with provisions, earning up to 500 rupees (£5) per day.