Women's Small Business Kit ($50)

With a little assistance from Mercy Corps, women around the world are investing their creative ideas and hard work to start and run small businesses — ventures that enable their families to move from poverty to opportunity.

Why Help Is Needed

Many women in poor countries suffer the strictures of second-class citizenship. They’re determined and resourceful, but they lack access to the resources that would allow them to put smart business ideas to work for the benefit of their families.

Mercy Corps In Action

Recognizing that women worldwide are the engines of advancement for their families, Mercy Corps invests in the small businesses of female entrepreneurs. We provide training and loans to help women turn their dreams into successful enterprises, which not only fulfill unmet community needs but also help fund their children’s education and ensure their families’ well-being.

Guo Guifen's Story

For many years, Guo Guifen and her family wandered from place to place in southern China, settling wherever they could find enough work to make ends meet. They were caught up in the itinerant cycle of hardscrabble short-term employment that defines China's migrant workforce, 150 million strong and growing.

But today, with a savvy idea and some help from Mercy Corps, she's finally found a way for her family to stay in their village of Xinnong — and it all started with noodles.

"I noticed that people had to travel to surrounding villages to buy wheat noodles, as there weren't any sold in the market here," she explains. "And we were already growing a lot of wheat around here, so why not make our own noodles?"

So, after visiting with local Mercy Corps staff, she borrowed money to purchase a heavy-duty grain mill and, soon after that, began milling wheat and making noodles in her home. Today, she offers her homemade dry noodles once a week in the local market — usually selling at least 500 pounds each time. That's enough not only to keep her family from having to migrate for work, but also to employ other local women who once, like her, had to work far from home.

Women's Small Business Kit ($50)
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Purchase of a Mercy Kit is a symbolic gift that supports Mercy Corps' worldwide programs to help children and families in need. The Breastfeeding Kit, Climate Change Kit, Fuel-Efficient Stove Kit, Cricket Farm Kit, Send an Orphan to School Kit, Plant a Tree Kit, Play to Heal Kit and Uganda Farm Kit supports those specific project funds. Proceeds from the sale of other Mercy Kits will be used where most needed.