ASAP Empowers

ASAP, A Self-help Assistance Program, has been helping families flourish since 1994. ASAP provides a helping hand - not a handout - for those struggling to improve their own lives. All ASAP projects foster entrepreneurship, self-reliance, and cross-cultural understanding.

1. ASAP’s Tools For Empowerment (TFE) project provides upcycled trade tools to vocational school graduates around the world. In the USA, TFE keeps tons of tools out of landfills and provides volunteer opportunities for all ages. Around the world, TFE helps future auto mechanics, builders, carpenters, electricians, farmers, masons, metalworkers, plumbers, tailors, and welders earn a living and improve their own lives. Tools For Empowerment; Changing lives one tool at a time.

 ASAP's tool recycling center in Newnan GA accepts tool donations. Volunteer groups come together to refurbish these donations, build crates from recycled wood, and pack the restored tools, by trade, into 40-foot shipping containers. ASAP works in partnership with Missions Schools around the globe to select the country to receive the container of tools. 

Once filled with tools and equipment, the container sets sail to the selected country. These tools enhance learning - students put them to use during their coursework at various training centers throughout the country. The tools these students need to put their new skills to work are unaffordable for most students. Successful graduates receive a TFE kit for their chosen profession - empowering them with the tools to start a small business or find work. 

2. Savings Group Development: Savings Groups are self-funded, informal micro-finance groups that transform lives. The beauty of Savings Groups is that members make all the rules - when and how often to meet, how much to save, the interest rate, penalties etc. This ownership is the key to their phenomenal success - there are currently over 20 million active participants around the world!  As groups come together regularly to save and borrow money, members' social and working capital continue to grow. ASAP has helped over 200,000 families in Zimbabwe and Malawi increase their household income and self-reliance by providing training in how to form and manage Savings Groups.

3. Small Business Training Skills: Since 1994, ASAP has increased the capacity of thousands of entrepreneurs to succeed by providing training in small business skills. In conjunction with Savings Groups, members often choose to attend training in Selection, Planning and Managing a small business.

It’s your incredible generosity that makes this possible.