Merry Year International

Kamari, Dir of Lending at UOB, Mr. Jeon, Sungeun on UOB Day

Merry Year International (MYI) is an international development organization based in S. Korea. It had done some works in Russia and India, but started serious work in Malawi when MYI took over the UN's Millenium Village project in 2011. As the project entered into the second year and the project scope started gaining momentum, MYI desires to enter into Rwanda.

MYI has signed an MOU with UOB for collaboration in 2012, particularly in micro finance as the first step. MYI is going to work with UOB in designing and implementing a tuition fee loan program targeting secondary students and will establish a loan guarantee fund to provide a risk mitigation scheme. At the same time, MYI will introduce P2P micro lending program in S. Korea to mobilize individual lenders through MYI's new platform, namely Story Money. To facilitate this effort, MYI has sent an intern to work at UOB for a year. We are excited about this collaboration opportunity to expand UOB's product line as well as to help introduce a new P2P donor mobilization program in S. Korea.

MYI Delegates for MDG meeting in Nairobi (Aug 2011)

Merry Year means Jubilee in the bible, the year of God's favor, freedom and restoration. MYI is affiliated with Merry Year Foundation that was started several years ago by Rev. Dongho Kim whose interest has been helping the underprivileged through social enterprise developments that produce employments for the people who are poor and underserved in Korea. His interest has now been expanding beyond Korea to Malawi and to Rwanda.


Based on international standards, MYI's effort may be still insignificant, but it is significant in a sense that S. Korea is fairly new to international development and it is one of only few organizations that are showing serious interest in international development. S. Korea is known as the first country in the world, which has transformed successfully from a foreign aid receiving country to a giving country. 

May the good Lord bless this partnership to help bring greater blessings to many people in both Rwanda and S. Korea! - Jeffrey