India-Nagpur

We're excited to share with you our 2011-2012 Annual Report for the fiscal year running from July 1, 2011 to June 30, 2012. Click here to download the PDF.

In the report, you'll find all of the latest financial figures and program statistics, as well as stories, photos and highlights from every one of Five Talents' programs.

The report also features beautiful illustrations from one of our volunteers, Laura Bauder. So a great big thank-you to Laura, who also took on the task of designing the report.

On November 13, many churches around the country will read an old story that Christ once told on a Galilean hillside: Three servants received large amounts of money from their master. Two invested their stipend, doubling the return. One dug a hole and buried an opportunity to exercise his gifts.

I am talking, of course, about the Parable of the Five Talents in Matthew 25:14-30, from which our organization takes its name.

One of the key verses reads that the master gave talents to his servants "...each according to his ability." This phrase – "each according to his ability" – contains a liberating message for the poor, and also for ourselves. This Gospel reading suggests that we are made in the image of God and, therefore, all of us have value and gifts to use for ourselves, our families and our communities.

Five Talents is built on this belief. The poor have value and can be empowered to tap their own unique gifts and abilities to create a better life. When Five Talents began 11 years ago, words like sustainability, economic empowerment, and self-supporting churches were just beginning to be whispered. Now these words are being shouted from every corner of the world.

I dare say Five Talents has helped to lead that conversation as a means of growing God's Kingdom.

Five Talents: Fighting Poverty, Creating Jobs, Transforming Lives from fivetalents on Vimeo.

microentrepreneur wins award

February 25, 2009
BibleDude.net
By Kelli Ross, Five Talents Director of Communications

Vasanti Uikey struggled against extreme poverty to become a successful microentrepreneur. Now, this 45-year-old mother of two has been named the 2008 National Runner-up and the Social Responsibility Category Winner (West and Central) by the Citi Micro Entrepreneur Awards program. She was chosen out of 2,500 nominees for this prestigious award.

Thanks to a $62 loan from Five Talents partner, Community Development Society (CDS) in India, Vasanti now owns a milk distribution center and a grocery store in the Pandhrabodi slum of Nagpur.