Sometimes, all one needs is the capital to start a business and get going. This was certainly the case for husband and wife, Mateus Goncalves, 40, and Martinha Soares, 34, who wasted no time in starting a kiosk as soon as they got a loan from the microfinance institution Moris Rasik. The couple now sells rice, noodles, sugar, coffee, soap, and other basic needs in their small kiosk near the Liquica market. “Getting a loan from Moris Rasik got us started. It motivated us to work hard and improve our lives,” says Martinha. They have been clients of Moris Rasik since 2003. Like everybody else, the couple started by taking out a small loan of $50-100, and worked up to bigger size loans from there.

Moris Rasik provides small loans of $50-$4,000 to small businesses, specifically targeting poor women and widows in rural communities. Currently, Moris Rasik has 14 branches (with two new branches in Manatuto and Viqueque) in ten districts with 9,796 active clients. “Motivating our clients to give their small businesses their best shot is our main task,” says Januario Leite, manager of Moris Rasik’s branch in Liquica. He added: “There are some successful clients, who have then increased their loans up to $4,000, and it is a good sign. They motivate the other clients to work even harder.” The Liquica branch currently has 911 clients who actively run different kinds of small businesses in their rural villages.

Moris Rasik is among the microfinance institutions in the country that USAID’s Small Grants Program is supporting so that they can deliver their financial services to the rural areas. On June 30, 2007, Moris Rasik achieved operational profitability for the first time since its establishment in 2000. This is an important milestone in the microfinance industry in Timor-Leste and an enormous achievement by Moris Rasik. Although many of Moris Rasik’s clients suffered in the crisis of 2006, they were able to quickly rebound and use their loans to improve their business activities and support their families.

Martinha and Mateus say that with their kiosk, they are no longer worried about sending their four children to school. They are also happy to have inspired other families to do as they did and try microcredit so they can start small businesses. “I hope the other families will also succeed,” the couple says.

As the couple’s example shows, microcredit goes a long way in kickstarting economic activity in Timor-Leste’s cash-strapped communities, where most people wouldn’t have sources of credit otherwise.