BYU senior raising funds for Kenyans

PROVO — She started her first business while in high school and launched a frozen yogurt shop last year while a junior at Brigham Young University.

Now 21-year-old entrepreneur Kara Forrest, the driving force behind Provo Fro-Yo, wants to help impoverished Kenyan women launch their business dreams by raising money tonight for microloans.

Forrest invites the public to attend the annual Christmas charity fund-raiser tonight from 7 to 9 p.m. at Fro-Yo, 2255 N. University Parkway, and make tax-deductible donations to Yehu Microfinance. Her goal is to raise $2,500, enough for Yehu to make more than 20 loans to poor women in Kenya.

"These loans help women become financially independent and provide for their families," Forrest said. "I don't think it will cure poverty, but I think it can help."

Yehu is an Orem-based nonprofit organization that sends 100 percent of donated funds directly to Kenya, executive director Troy Holmberg said.

Yehu's average loan is just $119, but Kenyan women who use the loans generally double their family's income from $2 a day to $4.

"The women take these loans and either start a business or enhance the business they've already started," he said. "They may buy a sewing machine or go to market and buy in bulk and then re-sell the products back in their village."

Forrest says loans as small as $50 make a major difference in the lives of Kenyan women and their families, especially because Yehu charges the market interest rate of 25 percent instead of the 60 percent to 1,000 percent interest charged by loan sharks in Kenya.

Forrest also was drawn to the perpetual nature of every donation. As each loan is paid back, the money is loaned out again.

The United Nations declared 2005 the International Year of Microcredit, and the practice was the subject of a recent documentary by BYU Broadcasting, "Small Fortunes: Microcredit and the Future of Poverty," which featured Yehu and other organizations. The BYU Center for Self-Reliance was a sponsor of the documentary, which aired on PBS. For more information, visit kbyutv. org/smallfortunes.

Forrest's first venture was an online business that sold themed scrapbooking kits. Her family spent a lot of nights helping her put together kits in her Mesa, Ariz., home. The business was a success, but she abandoned it after high school.

She won't say how much money she made, but Guardian Life Insurance awarded her first place in a national entrepreneur contest and gave her a $17,000 "Girls Going Places" scholarship.

She used her profits and the scholarship money to start Fro-Yo, a nonfat, soft-serve frozen yogurt shop in Provo. It opened in April 2004 and broke even this summer.