Bill Abrams: My name is Bill Abrams, and I am the President of Trickle Up. For over 30 years, we have provided women living in extreme poverty with the tools to build businesses that grow their income, skills, and self confidence. I’d like to highlight two special women, who exemplify our mission and represent the past, present, and future of Trickle Up.
Mildred Robert Leets founded Trickle Up with her husband Glen in 1979. She devoted her life to the causes of women’s empowerment, civil rights, and peace. Millie was a visionary who worked tirelessly to bring the innovative Trickle Up approach to tens of thousands of women who struggled daily to escape extreme poverty. Millie passed away in May 2011, and her words continue to inspire us everyday.
Millie: Every woman dreams of a better life and will work like a champion for it if given the opportunity.
Bill: Millie’s legacy lives on, with women like Achiron Bibi. Achiron Bibi lives in a rural village in West Bengal, India. She was born to a poor family and married at the age of 11. She often didn’t have enough food to feed her 5 children. Aschiron joined the Trickle Up program, learned new business skills, and started saving regularly with her savings group. With the Trickle Up grant, she began a small business, rearing and selling goats. Within a few months, she was earning enough to build a large pond stocked with fish. And with a loan from her savings group, she started a vegetable garden for goats, fish, and vegetables, put food on her family’s table, and generated even more profits.
Ashiron: My savings group enabled me to have a business that can support my family.
Now Achiron can afford to send her children to school, and she is confident about her family’s future. Trickle Up helps thousands of women every year take the first steps out of extreme poverty. Each Trickle Up enterprise benefits an average of 5 people, and in the past 3 years alone, we’ve helped more than 125,000 people in India, West Africa, and Central America.
Every day, we are inspired by Millie Leet, and by women like Achiron Bibi, who begin life changing journeys out of extreme poverty. Your help makes stories like this possible, and we are grateful for your support and hope that you will continue to join us in our mission. Thank you.
Nathalie Laidler-Kylander, president and CEO of Trickle Up, joins Richard Brubaker on the Mission Driven Podcast to talk about Trickle Up’s unique approach to ending extreme poverty and partnering with women in the most low-resource settings.
Nathalie Laidler-Kylander, President and CEO of Trickle Up, joins Bill Burke on The Optimism Institute’s podcast, Blue Sky, to talk about her career path to Trickle Up and her optimism for solving some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
Members of Trickle Up’s technical team share Indigenous heritage with our project participants. The FUERTE project allows them to connect more deeply with their native languages, Tzotzil and Tzeltal, and communities in Mexico and supports the connection of Indigenous community members and leaders across the regions.
