LendwithCare is part of Care International, one of the world's leading aid and development organisations.

It makes it possible for individuals and groups to lend to small entrepreneurs in developing countries, helping them to find their own route out of poverty. They apply for a loan with a business plan, which includes a schedule for repayment of the loan. This is submitted to lendwithcare.org and individuals and groups can then make contributions to the amounts requested in increments of £15 or more.

Shortly after a loan is fully funded and the funds passed to the entrepreneur, the lenders start to receive regular repayments in accordance with the published repayment schedule.

And these repayments can be used to make more loans to other entrepreneurs!

Currie Balerno Rotary was the first UK Rotary Club to join the scheme in 2011 with an initial £500. We have added to that with funds from the Currie Balerno Charity Account, from individual Rotary members and from members of the local community. With very few exceptions, the loans have been repaid as scheduled and the money has been reinvested so that we can lend again and again and again.

Since 2011, from an outlay of some £4000, of which nearly 60% has come from individual contributors, we have made loans totalling more than £24000 to over 500 people in 15 countries. Interestingly, over 60% of the recipients of loans have been women.

Now the pupils of Ratho Primary and Balerno’s Dean Park Primary are joining in.

We made a presentation to P5 classes at Dean Park and P7 classes at Ratho, showing what we do through LendwithCare and the sort of people we help. The presentation was well received and we invited the schools to consider participating in the scheme. Ratho’s Head Teacher Peter Gibb and Dean Park Deputy Head Laura Jackson were enthusiastic about taking this forward as were the teachers and as indeed were the children themselves.

We have donated £300 to each school – money we would otherwise have invested ourselves in LendwithCare – and the schools are already discussing which entrepreneurs to lend to.

This will add a new international dimension to the children’s education and will give them an insight into the need experienced in disadvantaged regions of the world. It will also give them satisfaction in the knowledge that they are making a contribution.