Highlands Ranch Herald Reports on Kenya Trip by Robyn Lydick

Micro-finance is reaping big rewards in communities across the globe.

In Kenya, rural areas are bereft of credit lending and other financial services, so micro-loans from organizations that lend small amounts, $25 to $500 are helping businesses survive, expand and even fund start-ups.

Highlands Ranch residents April and Brook Stensgard, 13, Tijian Smith and her mother, Linda Lowenstein, 65, will head to Kenya to check on a micro-finance group, Seda, with which the Stensgard family has been involved. Smith and Lowenstein are members of Centennial Covenant Church, which has several programs with Kenya. 

Seda, which means “push me up” in Swahili, April Stensgard said, lends small amounts to women, all widows who lost their husbands, and sometimes their adult children, to violence or disease, including AIDS. Read More from Highlands Ranch Herald