Whole Planet Foundation™ and Unitus Join Forces to Accelerate Growth of Microfinance in Kenya
Three-year Partnership Aims to Reduce Global Poverty by Increasing Access to Microfinance in Communities Where Whole Foods Market® Sources Products
Seattle, WA and Austin, TX (December 4, 2008) — Unitus, Inc., an international nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing global poverty by accelerating access to microfinance, and Whole Planet Foundation, a Whole Foods Market foundation that funds microlending projects in communities where the Company sources products, today announced plans to fuel the growth of microfinance in the coffee-growing regions of Kenya. The partnership will leverage the foundation’s support to help Jamii Bora Trust, one of Kenya’s fastest growing microfinance institutions and a Unitus partner since 2003, expand into the rural coffee-growing regions of Central and Eastern provinces in Kenya. This project marks Whole Planet Foundation’s first entry into Africa and Unitus’s initial expansion into East Africa. Whole Planet Foundation microlending funds are not directed to Whole Foods Market suppliers, but rather to the poorest of the poor in the communities where these suppliers live and work.
