A visiting microfinance pioneer has helped the The Coalition for the Protection of Children overhaul its innovative programme of making small business loans to Bermudian women to help them dig out of financial hardship.The Coalition said yesterday Fundacion Paraguaya founder Martin Burt had helped the organisation come up with “a whole new approach” to microlending.Rather than lending to one woman at a time, Ms Cooper said, the Coalition will make microloans to groups of women, either to fund one business or separate businesses, but to be paid back collectively. That way they can support and encourage each other to be successful and pay back their loans, Coalition director Sheelagh Cooper said, noting the repayment rate for the programme in the past had not been great.A group of seven women have already signed up for the first microloan under the new strategy, Ms Cooper said.With the Island’s rise in unemployment, the Coalition has been quietly making microloans up to $5,000 to help out-of-work mothers start small businesses over the past few years.Ms Cooper said that out of a dozen loans made to date, 50 percent of the small businesses they funded were successful, including popcorn making, baking and a mobile main/pedicure businesses.With the help of the Bermuda Commercial Bank, Ms Cooper said Mr Burt was brought to Bermuda to talk to the Coalition and its women clients about how to make the programme more successful.As Mr Burt told us, microloans aren’t just for Third World countries.After meeting with women at the Coalition yesterday, Mr Burt said he came away highly impressed by their desire to work and to turn their lives around.“What’s so beautiful is many don’t want charity,” Mr Burt said, “they don’t want a handout, they just want an opportunity to work and earn money. The safety and health of so many children depends on these mothers.”Mr Burt added: “Microfinance applied here in Bermuda is something that will work very well. It’s for people in any country that cannot benefit from the standard financial system.“The enthusiasm and willingness to work that I saw flies in the face of people who say poor families are lazy. They may be unmotivated because of their circumstances and they may not have the skills, but they are not lazy.”Mr Burt’s top tips for women who want to start small businesses are:- Separate the money. Make one account for business and one for the family so that the husband or (older) children aren’t taking from the business.- Write down every single cost so pricing is correct and can cover a salary, and you are not working for no profit.Ms Cooper said of Mr Burt’s advice: “It was amazing. We have a whole new approach to microelending now.”The Coalition has also brought together a group of 20 stakeholders who represent other agencies to hear what Mr Burt has to say about “Seeking success through Empowerment, Employment and Entrepreneurship”.”We feel in this economic climate the programme can help empower women and improve their economic circumstances. They all seem to be looking for work but with no success in finding work, or finding work that pays enough to sufficiently cover the costs of raising and housing a family in Bermuda.”Mr Burt is the CEO of Fundación Paraguaya, a 25-year old NGO devoted to the promotion of entrepreneurship and self-help to eliminate poverty around the world.He has helped set up microloan programmes in Paraguay and South Africa.He has also developed one of the world’s first financially self-sufficient agricultural and tourism schools for the rural poor. He is co-founder of Teach a Man to Fish, a global network based in London (2000 members-119 countries) that promotes “education that pays for itself”.