Displaying Member Commitments 1 - 10
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The Creative Entrepreneurship Fund
Commitment by: The Arthur Guinness Fund
Focus Area: Economic Empowerment
Introduction: The Arthur Guinness Fund is working with Youth Business America to lend seed captial to aspiring entrepreneurs ages 21-35 without access to funds so that they may start new businesses. The program will also provide volunteers from Guinness & Co. to offer counsel in marketing and innovation and educate business developers about the importance of establishing social responsibility practices for their new ventures. The investment from the Arthur Guinness Fund would go toward expanding the program's current reach to more local communities and to support centralized administration of the overall program, systems development and operations.
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Scaling of Basic Services With Small and Medium Enterprises
Commitment by: Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG)
Focus Area: Economic Empowerment
Introduction: Over the next five years AIDG will scale its business incubation services to create 25 new infrastructure development enterprises for underserved communities. These enterprises will aid a combined population of over 200,000 people, bringing water, sanitation, energy and other desperately needed services. From $1.25 million in initial investment, these entrepreneurs will generate $5 million per year in economic activity and will help bring basic services to struggling communities
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ING-Girls Inc. Investment Challenge
Commitment by: ING Foundation
Focus Area: Education
Introduction: In partnership with Girls Incorporated, ING created a program called the ING-Girls Inc. Investment Challenge. It is an innovative program that gives participating girls practical, hands-on investing experience while allowing them to keep their gains in the form of college scholarships. With the help and guidance of trained Girls Inc. staff and ING employee volunteers, teams of girls ages 12-18 are building and managing diversified, real-time portfolios as part of an integrated investment and economic-literacy curriculum. This CGI commitment will expand upon current activities in New York City, Denver and Los Angeles and Alameda counties in California. The program will now expand to Atlanta, Georgia, and the greater Hartford, Connecticut area. The ING-Girls Inc. Investment Challenge addresses the need for financial literacy in the United States and will have a direct positive impact on the lives of 100 young ladies.
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Income Creation in Ethiopia: Microfinance in Agriculture
Commitment by: A Glimmer of Hope Foundation
Focus Area: Economic Empowerment
Introduction: A Glimmer of Hope is offering its infrastructure, track record and well-defined partnerships with leading Ethiopian microfinance institutions (MFIs) at no cost to other CGI members who would like to support microlending initiatives in some of the poorest communities on Earth in 2010. Through this commitment, 100% of of funds will be used to make microloans to farmers so that they can invest in irrigation equipment and other agricultural supplies; it will also give start-up loans to businesses run by women, many of them agriculture based. As a result, small plots of land will transform from "rock and rubble" into "fields of green" enabling the farmers and their families to have food to eat and crops to sell in local markets. Equally, women will have the start-up capital to engage in a broad range of business activities creating income for themselves and their families. Financial empowerment creates personal empowerment. A Glimmer of Hope will grant non-fundable, interest free, revolving loan capital to selected, established Ethiopian MFIs.
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Vision for a Nation
Commitment by: Chen Yet-Sen Family Foundation
Adaptive Eyewear
Focus Area: Global Health
Introduction: In 2009, Adaptive Eyewear committed to mobilize village health workers and nurses to assess the vision of an estimated 300,000 people from the district of Gicumbi in Rwanda, and provide 50,000 eyeglasses to those who need them. Adaptive Eyewear's Vision for a Nation program is making use of adjustable eyeglasses which can be distributed by trained laypersons to overcome the enormous shortage of eye care specialists in the developing world.
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Technologies to Improve Women's Economic Livelihoods
Commitment by: Exxon Mobil Corporation
Ashoka Changemaker Campus Initiative
International Center for Research on Women
Focus Area: Economic Empowerment
Introduction: Since 2005, ExxonMobil has built a significant program to advance economic opportunities for women in developing countries, with an investment to date of over $20M.

At the 2009 CGI Annual Meeting, the company's commitment is to introduce a new focus area to this program, Technologies to Improve Women's Economic Livelihoods, which will help identify and deploy technologies that can improve quality of life and enable women in developing countries to participate more fully in income-generating activities. Over the first 12 months, ExxonMobil will invest $1.5M in this new focus area, to include:
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Ending Violence against Girls and Women:Transforming Nations
Commitment by: NoVo Foundation
Focus Area: Education
Introduction: Violence against girls and women in the DRC and surrounding countries has reached epidemic proportions with a devasting impact on the safety, health and welfare of girls and women in the region. This commitment presents an opportunity for bold action to challenge the inevitability of violence against girls and women and to build the power of victims of violence to transform their families, communites and nations. The Ending Violence against Girls and Women, Transforming Nations commitment brings together three organizations, International Rescue Committee, V-Day, and Women for Women International with the support of the NoVo Foundation. Collectively, these projects will help end violence against women in this region, build human capital , advocate for women in the DRC globally, help build training centers and hospitals, contribute to financial self-sufficency and more. This commitment directly addresses the need for economic empowerment and education in the DRC and surrounding areas and will directly impact the lives of 46,345 women and girls.
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Repatriation and Cultural Preservation in Haiti
Commitment by: Green Family Foundation
Focus Area: Education
Introduction: The Green Family Foundation is enthusiastic to fund a project through the Association for Cultural Equity and its partners that will repatriate the recordings made by Alan Lomax in Haiti on behalf of The Library of Congress in 1936-37. Only now brought to light, this collection is reflective of the many-storied Haitian past and a testament to its people's power to create and hold fast against many odds. It will be given to repositaries with adequate archival and outreach facilities in Haiti and the Haitian Disaspora, and we will work with them to ensure that this representative portrait of Haiti's rich oral tradition will be used as a source of knowledge and inspiration as the country moves forward.
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Extending HIV Prevention Efforts to MSM
Commitment by: Population Services International
Focus Area: Global Health
Introduction: Population Services International (PSI) is currently implementing HIV prevention programs for men who have sex with men (MSM) in over 10 countries in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Despite these and other efforts, the particular needs of MSM are largely unmet by national HIV prevention strategies and programs implemented in the developing world. As a result, MSM in many countries have the highest HIV prevalence of any subpopulation. PSI, in collaboration with its partners, will launch an initiative to expand the number of HIV prevention programs for MSM by developing support for such interventions among international donors and national institutions while reinforcing the capacity of PSI and its partners to meet the needs of these men.
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Network of Renewable Energy Centers of Excellence
Commitment by: Inter-American Development Bank
Focus Area: Economic Empowerment
Introduction: The Inter-American Development Bank will establish a renewable energy and energy efficiency network of excellence by supporting institutions, companies, and academics working in these areas in raising financing for R&D/innovation; developing public-private partnerships in areas of comparative advantage; and fostering technology transfer; in order to position Latin America and the Caribbean as a leader in the global network of innovation.
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