Friendship Bridge is a nonprofit working with Guatemalan women to build businesses, skills, and healthier futures. Learn about our mission, our history, and the people and programs behind the work.
We utilize the tools of microcredit, education, preventive health services, agricultural training, and business development to support our clients in building resilience and pursuing their chosen opportunities. Together, these inputs strengthen what each woman is already building in her business, with distinct outcomes for each client segment reflecting their unique circumstances and potential.
Established in 1990 and headquartered in Lakewood, Colorado, Friendship Bridge operates 13 branch offices in Guatemala. Clients are 100% women, primarily Indigenous Maya, and live in rural communities with some of the highest poverty levels worldwide. Annually, Friendship Bridge supports over 37,000 women and through our programming, we are changing how clients see, respond to, and overcome the protracted issues of poverty for themselves, their families, and their communities.
MissionCreating opportunities that empower Guatemalan women to build a better life.
VisionEmpowered women choosing their own path.
Impact ObjectivesTo increase resilience, empowerment, and business development.
Studies have shown that when women are successful, they invest beyond themselves, in their children, and in their communities. Investing in women is smart from both an economic and a social perspective.
For more than 25 years, Friendship Bridge has provided microcredit to Indigenous Maya women in rural Guatemala, so they can invest in their businesses, support their families, and create jobs in their communities. Read about our approach to microcredit here.
Non-Formal Education, provided monthly during our clients’ Trust Bank loan repayment meetings, offers our clients skills and knowledge to create sustainable change for themselves, their children, and their communities.
Through the Health for Life program, health education and screenings are made possible for Guatemalan women who would otherwise go without. Since 2015, Health for Life has provided over 25,000 women with health services that catch treatable conditions early.
Handmade by Friendship Bridge® provides women artisan entrepreneurs with business training and income-generation opportunities. By connecting artisans to U.S. and international markets, women have the opportunity to grow sustainable businesses while preserving cultural traditions.
Bridge to Success combines individual loans with business training, coaching, and networking opportunities, enabling women entrepreneurs to scale sustainably and build resilient enterprises.
Women’s Agriculture Credit & Training gives smallholder women farmers in Guatemala the financial support, technical training, and business skills to grow their harvests, raise their income, and build lasting resilience against poverty.
Friendship Bridge’s history began with its work in Vietnam providing medical education and shipping medical supplies to impoverished populations in war-ravaged areas. While medical supplies were positively impacting the lives of recipients, Friendship Bridge was looking for a more sustainable solution to poverty reduction — the solution was microcredit. In 1994, we shifted our focus from medical supplies to microcredit and began offering small loans to impoverished women. Our clients, indigenous women who were deemed “unbankable,” started or expanded small businesses and began creating their own sustainable solutions to poverty.
In 1998, Friendship Bridge expanded its work to Guatemala, another war-ravaged country suffering extreme poverty and offering limited opportunities to women. Friendship Bridge shifted out of Vietnam as operations in Vietnam became unsustainable due to an unfavorable political climate. Focusing solely on Guatemala, and aided by investment from American donors, the seeds of the Microcredit Plus program we know today were planted. By 2003, almost 3,000 clients were borrowing from Friendship Bridge. By 2006 the number tripled to 9,000 clients, and today we reach over 37,000 women through our programs.
Friendship Bridge’s work depends on a community of supporters, volunteers, and partners who believe in the women we serve. Explore our impact, then take action to join us.
Puente de Amistad
¡Hola! Soy tu amiga Doña Chila. ¿Necesitas más información acerca de nuestros financiamientos?
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