SUPPORTER SPOTLIGHT
Janet Cardinell has been a Unitus supporter since 2005, when she traveled to Africa on a Unitus Microfinance Trip.
Recently she became a Unitus Ambassador, joining a select group of Unitus supporters working to increase awareness and support for our mission. At Cisco, where she is an Operations Manager, Janet is helping spread the word about global poverty and the promise of microfinance.
For Janet, it’s about extending opportunity to all.
After the 2001 terrorist attacks, Janet kept thinking about world peace. Gaping inequities, she observed, directly caused conflict. “Economic stability is affected by three key factors,” she notes, “good political governance; laws that provide safety, property rights and basic human rights; and opportunity to improve one’s personal situation.”
Helping the nearly 3 billion people who survive on less than $2 a day—about half the world’s population—achieve the opportunity to work hard and build equity was something Janet could do. Her consulting and entrepreneurial experience had taught her that the surest path to success began with self-determination.
As a single mother originally from the Midwest, Janet related instinctively to mothers in Africa, where she visited microfinance clients in a village in Kenya. In their neighborhood of slums with corrugated tin roofs that stretched for blocks, she saw people juggling the needs of family with the demands of work, needing “the same kinds of support we need here” in America. The shops and kabob carts on the corners and the feeling of community reminded Janet of places she’d lived and people she relied on in her own daily life.
“I love being able to make an impact to support people who have the self-determination and persistence to start a business and work hard for its rewards,” said Janet. “By contributing through Unitus I further their mission of accelerating these efforts.”
“What I really like is being able to support what I believe is a fundamental element of a stable community—the ability to make a living and support one’s family. The adage, ‘give a man a fish, feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, feed him for a life time,’ reflects why I support this work. Helping MFIs scale their services, thereby equipping communities to support themselves in an ongoing, sustainable way, is an ideal way for me to contribute and give to others what I’ve enjoyed in my own life.”
(Thanks to longtime Unitus supporter Suzanne Skees for her writing in this article.)
> Learn more about how you can experience the power of microfinance.
