Vesna Stankić, began working as a hairdresser in 2000, pursuing a life-long dream. She developed a devoted following and soon opened her own salon. Her business was successful and growing but she lacked the capital to support that growth. In 2003, upon a recommendation of her friends, she contacted MI-BOSPO (Bosnia and Herzegovina) and took a loan to move to a larger location with enough space to hire an additional hair dresser.

Saima Mohammad is a client of WWB Network Member, Kashf Foundation. As the Pulitzer Prize winning journalists Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn tell it in their new book, "Half the Sky," Saima's worst crime was being married to a frustrated, unemployed man. Beaten, shunned and shamed for not bearing him a son, Saima turns her life around when she gets a $65 loan from Kashf.

Magda Salem, a mother of three children and a wife of a taxi driver, started her own business of buying fabric from suppliers, cutting and sewing it into scarves and selling them to her neighbors and relatives. Magda soon saw an opportunity in the overpopulated neighborhood in Cairo, the Dar Al Salam district.

In 2000, Safia Chettali aspired to become financially independent by starting her own microenterprise using her creativity and knowledge of traditional tapestry. The 20-year-old married woman from Tunisia had only attended primary school, but she would not let a lack of formal education hold her back.

Are entrepreneurs born or nurtured? Nadya Felah proves that it is a bit of both. Even when she worked as a janitor at a government school in Amman, she supplemented her meager income by buying used clothes in bulk and selling them to teachers.

The Middle East is home to several countries where poor women’s economic access is more severely limited than in less traditional societies. Jordan is considered a middle income country by world standards, yet the opportunities for women to earn a living outside the home are almost non-existent.