History

Two Way Out was founded because of the extraordinary work of an earlier organization called Grounded and Holistic Approach for People’s’ Empowerment (GHAPE), founded in Cameroon in 1998 to address the problem of inaccessibility to credit by the poor.  Growing up in one of the poorest areas in the Northwest Region of Cameroon at the time, the founder developed an understanding of the plight of the poor much too early in life.  Due to a lack of collateral, the people in Cameroon, particularly in the Northwest Region, have traditionally been denied the financial tools needed to weather difficult times or take advantage of profitable opportunities.  The effect of this neglect has been an inability to afford a balanced diet, access to higher education, medications, shelter and other basic needs by poor households. It was in response to these conditions that Bernadette A. Ngoh decided to make a difference.

As a young single mother, her mother, Dorothy Akoba was determined to provide for her family.  Dorothy focused her efforts on starting a small business.  To receive the finances necessary to begin her enterprise, Dorothy approached several different local banks for a small loan.  Despite her best efforts, Dorothy was repeatedly denied access to credit. This denial was not because of lack of a solid business plan, potential or work ethic. Dorothy’s denial was simply the result of her lack of collateral to properly secure her loan.  Time and again she was told that “banks just don’t loan to people like you.”

Realizing how prevalent this economic discrimination was and asserting that access to credit is a basic human right, the founder adopted a new kind of lifestyle. She saved from pennies.  She trekked instead of taking a taxi.  She ate one survival type meal a day. She bought no clothes, shoes, jewelries or nice lotion within a period of at least three years. She eventually saved what she used to implement her idea. She attended a Grameen Dialogue in 1998 in Bangladesh. Professor Muhammad Yunus model acted as the last ingredient she needed to put into practice her initiative. GHAPE integrated lessons learned from Grameen Bank to its empowerment credit formula. She made available her entire life savings. On October 27, 1998, 558,000 CFA i.e. an equivalent of about $1,116.00 was loaned out to thirty-five working poor individuals. She entrusted her savings with aspiring entrepreneurs who had been denied credit opportunities by the same institutions that had turned their back on her mother. The initial loans made by Bernadette A. Ngoh opened a path for many and laid the foundation for an organization that has reached thousands and is still reaching more people today in the North-West region of Cameroon. The impact of these empowerment tools is visible

Despite the impact, GHAPE strategy was not widely known. This obscurity and recommendations from GHAPE partners contributed to creating Two Way Out. Guided by lessons learned over a decade executing the Empowerment Credit formula at GHAPE, the experience, accomplishments, challenges and recommendations by our target clientele, members of participating communities, volunteers, interns, visitors, and current services and general delivery patterns by micro-finance institutions and other poverty alleviation programs necessitated the crafting of CRESS capital loans. This is an innovation to better serve the needs of the poor which often are multiple, interrelated and have a cause and effect relationship.

This innovation also takes into consideration amongst other things the following; that poverty, ignorance and diseases are part of the same problem having an intimate cause and effect relationship. The problems facing the poor are not in isolation. Poverty in some communities have become resistant to some poverty alleviation tools. There exists a competitive goal of reaching the poor with services and reaching financial viability of institutions. There are other partners and stakeholders in some communities.
There are hardly supportive exit programs. Each client has its strength and passion. Every community is different and equipped with resources that poverty alleviation programs could build on. There are many strategies to reduce poverty including political will, commonly accepted beliefs and practice. There are many paths to poverty reduction.
This package also has the innovation of having SMART start and completion criteria and support plan for one time CRESS borrowers. CRESS capital is a package containing financial and non-financial services delivered simultaneously to working poor. Financial services are delivered in a sequential order starting with the “C” and ending with the last “S” in CRESS. The acronym CRESS stands for Cultivation, Reinforcement, Expansion, Sustention and Seed capital loan.