We were contacted recently about a new initiative to enable people from the UK to support grass-roots projects in Guatemala. Seth Reynolds, director of Direct Sponsorship International Ltd, explained the objective behind the project:

"The idea of the organisation is to give small, local, grass-roots projects access to interested individuals and potential donors in Europe, through a central website. The website will contain information on lots of different grass-roots projects in various developing countries.

People will be able to search these according to their interests, and then become sponsors to a project of their interest. They will be able to set up monthly direct debits online through the site and therefore support locally-managed solutions to local problems in developing countries".

Direct Sponsorship is currently in the initial stages of development. They have already begun working with three small, local NGOs in Guatemala to develop the project's systems and processes, so as to ensure these systems work for both parties.We'll be following its development with interest here on this blog.