Leo Wells Media Article

Through an innovative blend of business and faith, Ruth Callanta is supporting small business growth and community transformation in the Philippines.

As the Ernst & Young 2003 Entrepreneur of the Year in the financial services category, I follow the annual Ernst & Young entrepreneur awards with great interest. I am especially impressed when someone starts a business that also has a positive impact on society. One such individual is Ruth Callanta, Ernst & Young's 2005 "Woman Entrepreneur of the Year" for the Philippines.

Ruth Callanta is the founder and president of the Center for Community Transformation (CCT). CCT serves Philippine entrepreneurs by providing "microloans."  Averaging just over $100 each, these small loans are not cost-effective for commercial banks. Yet they're enough to help hardworking individualsstart small businesses that generate income for education, nutrition, healthcare, and other life essentials.

Raised in a middle-class Philippine home, Ms. Callanta became impassioned to serve the poor of her country at an early age. After completing a masters' program at the Asian Institute of Management, she worked with several national and international development organizations. However, none of these organizations seemed able to make significant headway in breaking the cycle of poverty, despite their considerable resources. Ms. Callanta eventually became convinced that the only way to achieve true, sustainable change was through a "moral value transformation."

Inspired by this conviction, Ms. Callanta founded CCT in 1992. Initially, however, less than half of CCT's borrowers repaid their loans. It took several years and the help of The Haggai Institute, an Atlanta-based training agency, for CCT to successfully integrate faith-based teaching with its microloan program. CCT borrowers are now required to participate in weekly accountability groups. At these meetings, borrowers can make loan payments and savings installments, and they receive Biblically-based training, encouragement, and financial education.

Today, CCT boasts an astounding loan repayment rate of 98%, and the organization now serves over 70,000 active borrowers through 145 branches in 49 cities throughout the Philippines. In addition to small business loans for things like mini-grocery stores, clothing stands, and mobile phone stations, CCT also offers a host of other programs and services, such as:

• Job placement
• Entrepreneur training
• Servant leadership training
• Distribution of low-cost medicines and commodities
• Educational assistance to children of its community partners
• Health care through the establishment of community clinics

Besides helping Philippine entrepreneurs, CCT also serves four major poverty groups: street-dwellers, indigenous peoples, factory workers, and sacadas (landless agricultural workers).

Ruth Callanta set out to break the cycle of poverty in her homeland, and for thousands of Filipinos, her enterprise has been an astounding success. I join Ernst & Young in saluting her ingenuity, passion, and dedication to serving entrepreneurs throughout the Philippines.