The Making of onehen.org
By Katie Smith Milway

Four years ago, I heard a poultry farmer named Kwabena Darko tell his story of going from a struggling poor youth to one of the largest farmers in West Africa, and it all started with a small loan, known today as microfinance.  The initial loan established his business, provided him education and transformed his life.

It struck me that this story of change, triggered by one act of trust and giving, could inspire children: the lemonade-stand crowd, who embrace entrepreneurship and might embrace a way to connect their success with the hope of others.   After writing a children’s book about Rev. Darko’s experience, One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference, a friend told me my work was not yet finished.  He challenged me to meet with children where so many of them they live today – not in bound volumes, but on the unfettered pages of the World Wide Web.  He urged me to create a Web site, where children can engage with, and experience microfinance firsthand, so that it might truly change hearts and minds.   So my first leap of faith was to register a url:  www.onehen.org.

Next question: What did I know about building a Web site?  Not much, but an acquaintance, Dan Barnicle, a director at  Sapient , a global provider of marketing and technology services,  knew quite a bit, and he too saw the potential to cultivate compassion in kids.  So did some of my colleagues at Bain & Company, where I serve as corporate publisher:  consultants like Christina Riechers, who had worked in microfinance in Africa.   Between Sapient and Bain, we drew together a team of a dozen folks who understood either Web sites, microfinance, or both and wanted to donate their time. 

We committed to come together over pizza twice a month until we had built an online space where kids could play games related to One Hen, earn beads and then “loan” them to small businesses in a virtual marketplace.   Kids Can Press, publisher of One Hen, supplied curriculum to bring the book’s teachings to life, and we posted lesson plans on a tab for teachers and librarians.  Carole Matthews, a senior editor from Inc.com who runs that site’s “best lemonade stand in American” contest, joined the group and helped us to create classroom ‘tests’ and to use language that would appeal to kids.

Finally, global microfinance organization, Opportunity International, joined our team, supplying photos and film clips from African loan programs as well as the ability to move real pennies to real projects for every bead a child “loaned” online, providing we found sponsorship.   In fact, Kwabena Darko, the protagonist of One Hen, had joined the board of Opportunity International after setting up his own microfinance organization in Ghana to help other poor entrepreneurs.

The second leap of faith continues: a pledge to seek out a sponsor, or sponsors, to donate real pennies to real projects for each bead a child loans online, thus allowing kids to play a real role in microlending.   We have founded a “no-overhead” nonprofit, ARCA Foundation, to receive and receipt donations and funnel all gifts to field projects.  The first donor was SEED, a Schlumberger not-for-profit educational program which supports schools worldwide and in particular in West Africa.  Others have followed, and we are expanding the circle of funding partners.   For more information on how you can get involved, please write to letters@onehen.org. 

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