We were one of the first organizations to offer microfinance in Ghana. Poor women in particular, couldn’t access money or loans directly, so their only options were to borrow from those who would take advantage of them through usury. We said absolutely not to that, and WomensTrust was born.

Even in those early days, we saw our microfinance offerings as a hook, a way to build trust and partnership so that we might introduce women to educational programs.

It worked.

By 2015, two things had happened.

(1) Microfinance had changed drastically and there were huge organizations fighting that good fight. (2) We had built up trust. Trust enough that our community could tell us what it needed.

So we pivoted.

We handed over our microfinance business and clients to a larger organization and refocused on another gap in what women need to succeed: Education.

When we started, our students dreamed of being nurses. That was their “pie in the sky” job. Now the sky is the limit. They're studying to be doctors and nurses, accountants and engineers. It’s not a dream anymore—it’s an expectation. Together, our horizons have completely expanded--all in one generation.