AKRON, Ohio _ Every day, 10,000 people in three West African countries get up and go to work because of an organization started in Akron.
That's how Larry Lallo often begins his description of Mercy Economic Development International Corp. (MEDIC), a nonprofit that works with villages in Benin, Togo and Ghana by teaching people how to operate microbusinesses and extending them small loans.
Now that number is about to grow as MEDIC embarks on a unique partnership with Mercy Ships, a floating hospital that drops anchor at a different African port every 10 months while its volunteer medical professionals perform surgeries on people who have no access to health care.
Mercy is currently docked in Benin, renown for its "Point of No Return" port once used by slaver ships. And as usual, it has hired about 250 local villagers to serve what is basically a small, temporary city. They are trained to do everything from helping in the kitchen to diesel mechanics to clerical work.
But each time Mercy pulls up anchor, it has to leave that newly skilled workforce behind in a third-world economy that can't employ them all.
That's why Lallo's phone rang last year.
It wasn't the first time Mercy Ships had called Lallo. The "mercy" in MEDIC's name is no coincidence. Lallo worked aboard the ship in the late 1990s.
When a 2009 Akron Beacon Journal story explained how Lallo's experience led him to create MEDIC, the story ended up in the news feed of Mercy Ships President Don Stephens.
Stephens called Lallo, who visited Stephens at his Texas home to discuss a peculiar but brutal problem.
Mercy Ships was treating about a hundred women in Togo for incontinence caused by rape or a difficult childbirth. Without access to modern hygiene products, they had became pariahs to their fellow villagers. Some cultures considered them cursed.
While surgeons could fix them physically, the women still faced social consequences that made it difficult for them to earn a living. Since Togo was one of MEDIC's target countries, the Akron charity stepped in to teach the women how to run their own enterprises. Mercy Ships paid for the training.
"When people are together in similar circumstance and trying to rise up, there's a healing that takes place in the fellowship of support," Lallo said.
That small success led Mercy Ships to call Lallo again last year. The ship was moving to Benin in 2017, and since that was another MEDIC country, could the charity extend its umbrella over the day workers who will lose their jobs when the ship leaves in August?
"You know how it is to have value and dignity and you're going to work every day," Lallo said. "You have the fellowship of everyone on the ship, which is an amazing thing to experience. All that support. All those people saying 'Hi' and 'I love you' and the hugs. Then it's goodbye and you hear the ship's horn and it's going away and you're thinking 'Now what?'��"
"They wanted us to be part of the solution for the 'Now what,'��" Lallo said.
In January, Lallo went to Benin to finalize the Mercy-MEDIC partnership, and today, the ship's local workers are taking classes dockside, preparing for the day when they'll be on their own. Some are going through basic workforce training, others are learning how to become self-employed.
CREATING ENTREPRENEURS
A key point in MEDIC's microbusiness program is the ability to grant small loans. The concept is called a "trust bank," where borrowers guarantee each other's loans.
Participants are put into groups of 20 to 40 people that bond as they go through business classes and meet regularly to discuss their experiences, share advice and motivate each other to succeed.
If one business owner in the group defaults, the others must pay the loan back. That's where the word "trust bank" comes from, explained Bruce Jentner, an Akron financial planner who was inspired by MEDIC's work five years ago and now serves as the board's chairman
"There's a lot of camaraderie and accountability," Jentner said, "because they are all guaranteeing each other's loans, they want to see each other succeed."
The loans can be from $50 to a few hundred, an amount that goes a long way in an African village. The enterprises are mostly one- or two-person operations, repairing shoes, farming, selling beauty supplies, making clothes, preparing food or distributing charcoal and wood.
"Historically we've been getting a 98 percent loan repayment," Jentner said, "which means we are basically endowed."
Most of the loan recipients are women, the breadwinner in many families.
"What I find so gratifying is that most of these women are shouldering the responsibility of how to feed, clothe and educate their children, and we are giving them a way to do that," he said.
"The lesson we share is you don't always have to be poor," Lallo said. "It doesn't have to be a way of life forever. We try to transform their minds, give them hope for the future. Then we get them thinking about what are my skills, what needs are there in my area, what could I start that would be valuable in the workplace and differentiate me so I can be successful and earn money."
And because the children of those newly minted business owners are able to afford school, "we think that we are going to be able to break that cycle of poverty for the next generation," Jentner added.
SMALL STAFF; BIG RESULTS
Lallo, a former executive director of the Barberton Community Development Corp., created MEDIC in 2001 with David Daniels, a general contractor from East Canton, and Daniel Nallathamby, a Sri Lankan refugee living in Canada. The men met through their missionary work.
MEDIC has a paid staff of 50 people in Africa, all locals who conduct the day-to-day operations of the trust bank and the training program.
Its operations in North America get by with just 1.5 paid employees: a part-time director in Canada, and Lallo, who gets a small monthly stipend as executive director.
"That's the miracle," Lallo said, laughing. Everything else on this side of the pond, from planning committees to fundraising efforts, is done with the help of about 25 volunteers.
MEDIC has about $2 million "deployed," Lallo said. The money comes from diverse sources. A Rotary Club in Fairlawn. A farmer in Alberta, Canada. A manufacturer in Akron. Churches all over Northeast Ohio.
Long term, MEDIC would like to have $10 million deployed, a point at which the interest would support a larger paid staff in America, increase exposure and enable MEDIC to reach more third-world countries.
That goal is high on Jentner's bucket list.
"This is not just a toxic black hole of where we ask for money and then we ship it overseas and it disappears," he said. "We are teaching people to be good stewards of what is basically an endowment. That's a very attractive story to people in North America."
