So Far......So Good!

It has been almost a month in Guatemala and I must conclude of my experiences that this has been one of the most educational and inspiring trips I have had so far. A bit of background information: originally I wasn't on the Guatemala trip. I had signed up for the Carolina Microfinance Initiative (CMI) International Programs trip to Zimbabwe. In India I never got the opportunity to be a part of a group travelling abroad to help people out of poverty. In fact, I was introduced to the term micro-finance at a Community Empowerment Fund (CEF) interest meeting at UNC. They showed me a documentary portraying the evolving role of micro-finance in the globalized and connected world of today. In this documentary the founder of the Grameen Bank, Prof Muhammad Yunus, spoke about the plight of a woman in Bangladesh  making baskets everyday only to have most of her profits being taken away by a middleman. This inspired him to give the woman a small loan to buy her capital and get rid of the interference of the middleman. I still did not believe in the concept. Like a banker, I thought that giving poor people loans would never work as they had no security, they couldn't be trusted and would never repay. But that was exactly the point of  micro-finance.From this point onwards I kept researching and learning more about it. The beauty of micro-finance is that its not donating money. Donation never cures the problem, the people we provide loans are expected to pay back in full.

CMI's workshops were most helpful in learning the intricacies of starting a micro-finance initiative (MFI). I joined CMI's Kiva team to organize fundraising dinners in which the proceeds would go as micro-loans to entrepreneurs around the world through the online donating website www.kiva.org. I was satisfied knowing that I was making a difference. During this time I was told about the CMI trip to Zimbabwe, I hopped on board. I met Jonathan, a gentleman living in Chapel Hill but is originally from Zimbabwe. He is a wire artist and every year takes a group of students back to his homeland to help uplift the local community. We visited his house, had a wonderful Zimbabwean meal and finalized the dates of our trip. Unfortunately, elections in Zimbabwe forced us to cancel our trip. I lost hope of establishing an MFI this summer;however, Santi called me as soon as he knew and asked me if I would be willing to accompany him and Sarika establish an MFI to Guatemala. I couldn't miss this opportunity. The rest is history.

It is wonderful how everything worked out and now we are in our fourth week at Guatemala, completed three workshop sessions, filled in the loan applications and the survey forms, and now we are almost ready to disburse the loans to five entrepreneurial women from La Limonada. As I said before, initially I thought the poor were not a very good credit risk. Once I went to the homes of all the borrowers and saw their determination to work and improve their lives I realized that they are not poor by choice. If they are lazy to work it is either due to lack of capital or because of the way they have been brought up over the years. That is why Tita and her team have established two schools in La Limonada in order to educate the youth and cure the problems of violence and poverty from where it begins. People living in poverty want to improve their lives and are constantly searching for opportunities to do so. Banks do not  provide them with capital, if they do they charge exorbitant interest rates and take their houses as security.

The need of micro-finance is ubiquitous. Try and make a difference. Even if you are able to influence one life it is worth it.