So far, my favourite part of my work here in Honduras has been assisting with the microcredit program. Microcredit is a way of fighting poverty by providing small loans to people in the community so that they can build their small-scale business activities. Pioneered by the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh under the direction of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the microcredit model emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Microcredit programs proved that people living in poverty could make good use of credit and other financial services which until then, they had rarely been able to access. As the concept of microcredit spread, organizations adapted it to fit the needs of other regions, economic climates, and populations -- urban and rural, literate and illiterate, male and female.
This program interests me because it targets women and helps them to organize and support each other. Training individuals as part of a micro-credit initiative involves more than just dispensing loans: it empowers and strengthens the community. Diaconía works within the neighbourhood to improve business strategies, build self-esteem and accountability, foster valuable family relationships, and develop household management skills. I have had many opportunities to visit with loan recipients and I have seen their flourishing businesses. I believe that this approach to development has the potential to truly transform a community through the empowerment of individuals and by nurturing a strong network of support.
At this point, I am still learning the loan process so I’ve been assisting the other team members. Together we’ve gone to communities around Catacamas visiting potential clients and businesses. Since the credit program involves investing a lot of time and effort into training and supporting its clients, Diaconía prefers to start with a few preliminary visits to get to know one another. The priority is always to foster a strong relationship between the organization and its participants.
This past week I just finished working on a pamphlet and PowerPoint presentation to help us better communicate to our clients their rights, responsibilities and benefits within the program. We’ve really tried to simplify our message and emphasize the characteristics of a great relationship so we named it “La Receta del Éxito – The Recipe of Success”! Hopefully this will aid our individual borrowers and loan groups to understand that DN is ready to support them but that they ultimately hold the key to opening or closing the door to this opportunity.
Our most successful participants are those that take this cooperative relationship very seriously and also take great pride in their businesses. They realize that we are not loan-sharks out to take advantage and make an enormous profit. And yet our loans are not charity either because our clients know they have to invest wisely and work hard to pay it back.
In addition to working on pamphlets and presentations, I have been filling out loan application forms with our potential borrowers and sending the documents to Diaconía Nacional’s head office in Tegucigalpa. Not everyone can read and write very well so we have to sit down with each applicant – which also helps with my Spanish skills too! My other tasks include all that fun office work like making photocopies, sending emails, answering the phone and of course filing, filing and more filing. It seems like almost every job I’ve had involves a mountain of papers that need to be organized.
All in all it keeps me busy - which is great - and I find the whole program very intriguing. It also looks like I’ll have a break from the office work starting next week as we are expecting a work group from a church in British Columbia March 23nd. I bet I’ll be ready for more filing after a week of digging and mixing cement!
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