EFI Micro Enterprise Development

The Evangelical Fellowship of India–Micro-Enterprises Development (EFI-MED) is a project for Development, Research and Training that equips churches with economic development strategies that holistically empower the poor and powerless communities. By bringing together through the intervention of research (data collection and analysis’s of the same) the process of micro-economic development and the principle of social entrepreneurship for the members of the Christian communities living below the poverty line, EFI-MED attempts to build capacities of local churches and thus transform the lives of the Christian communities making them self-reliant.

Economic Development helps the Church rediscover its biblical mandate to serve the poor through spiritual transformation as well as economic development. The methods for the ministry are various and are derived from research and the best-practices within the contemporary fields of Christian economic development. 
Since 2000, the EFI-MED has been a relentless pioneer in developing and disseminating church-centered and gospel-driven development innovations including savings-led micro-finance, micro-enterprise development, financial literacy, employment preparedness and savings programs.

EFI is a major organization in India that is working through the churches towards the improvement of human and socio-economic conditions of the people. EFI-MED has implemented over 25 livelihood projects. Only during the period of 2012 -2014, for example, EFI-MED has constructed 570 houses in Kandhamal District, Orissa state where the 2008 anti-Christian riots destroyed the lives, properties and live hoods of many Christians.

Through over 170 trainings and the follow-up programs, the EFI (MED) has trained about 7000 church leaders in the area of Micro – enterprises, who are ministering in over 540 rural and urban areas with the help of the model of social entrepreneurship methods in the states of Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
EFI-MED will continue to equip the rural and urban churches for their sustainability of the activities in the future too.