Myself and 10 other members of the Irish Credit Union Movement will walk/jog/run along with around 40,000 other participants from across the globe on the popular 10km route through the heart of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia (7,726 ft – above sea level), on Sunday 26th November 2017.  Less than 15% of households in rural Ethiopia have access to credit. Member-run credit unions or, as they are called in Ethiopia, "Rural Savings and Credit Cooperatives" (RuSACCOs), supported by the ILCU Foundation grant loans to smallholder farmers. Profits earned from growing and trading vegetables produced on their small farms have allowed these four women pictured below  feed and send all of their children to school. Throughout the world, those with low, irregular or uncertain incomes are generally excluded from formal financial services. Over 2 billion people worldwide are still financially excluded – women and the rural poor are generally the most affected. This means that the poorest people are the most vulnerable, and a natural disaster, unplanned health emergency, theft or loss can push them into total poverty. The metal box shown in the image, is a savings box,  used in many rural areas where the ILCU Foundation works, such as The Gambia, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia. The idea is that the person saving has one key for the outside metal door, and the savings manager has another key, with no-one being able to access the safe/savings box without the two keys. Being able to save "safely", even a little amount, means that farmers and other women's groups, for example, are able to access credit (loans) from other members of their cooperative, to buy seed, tools, etc., so that they can save enough money to feed and send their children to school. Please help me and the Irish Credit Union team raise money for ILCU Foundation credit union projects in the developing world. Supporting us on our Great Ethiopian Run will help people help themselves and fight poverty. Contact me at the ILCU Foundation ([email protected]) if you would like to participate and/or raise sponsorship. 

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