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Just when I felt my brain spinning into the “Whats the point” cycle, Cristina, the asesora, asked me to help her with the socio economic survey, used to measure progress between the time the women form the committee and six months or a year down the road. I happily accepted but stumbled over my words as I asked the questions on the survey about the income, home and family make up of the woman. I wrote down answers skeptical of my ability to fully understand what they were saying and quickly realized which questions I needed to frame differently in order to display more sensitivity to the culture. “What is your job?” quickly became “Do you work outside of the home” after I realized that many woman were responding with “alma de casa” meaning house wife not cleaning woman. I re framed the question “What is your spouses name?” to “Are you married” after a woman laughed at me who had lost her husband and others snickered who were single. After my space out watching the wrestling pigs it was a quick reminder of the need to be in touch with details, differences and a great level of sensitivity that comes about when in a completely new culture.<\/p>\n
Cristina, the rural asesora for the Coronel Oviedo office of Fundacion Paraguaya (FP) took me under her wing when she realized I could help her with the socioeconomic surveys, travel with her and be there just to chat about the ups and downs of her job and life. She answered all my questions, sometimes with the answer I was looking for and other times leaving me even more confused.\u00a0 More importantly, she took me along every time and that was the best way for me to learn. The office had 9 employees: 2 asesoras, 4 oficiales, 1 cashier, 1 secretary and the manager. The asesoras, two young women in their early 20s focused on the women’s committees… Fundacion Paraguaya’s claim to fame in the microfinance world. The rural asesora, Cristina, has about 250 clients and counting, in the short five weeks I was there she formed ten new committees. Saide, the urban asesora working within the city limits of Coronel Oviedo has more than 900 clients who were passed on to her from the previous asesora. The majority of the meetings I went to were with Cristina anywhere from 1\/2 hour to 2 hours out of town by bus where she would hold the first meeting for the committee, give them the basics of the loan conditions and get their signature on a number of different forms. All that is needed for a committee to form is 8-12 women with a government issued id willing to take collective responsibility for the money they barrow. Fundacion Paraguaya does not require any proof of income or a plan for what the loan will be used for. To the eye of someone from the United States this may seem irresponsible but the community focused culture of Latin America makes it entirely possible and FP has incredibly high pay back rates. Loans start as low as $50USD and the women collectively decide the frequency and amount at which they will pay back their loan. Slowly they are able to increase the amount of their loan and thus able to grow their businesses and become better able to provide for their families.<\/p>\n
A few weeks into my time in Oviedo I attended another meeting with Cristina where she planned to start two new committees in a small town called Pejupa 2 hours away from Oviedo. We got on the bus at 9:00 in the morning traveled for an hour and a half to San Juaquin where we visited a couple committee members and then rode on the back of two small motorcycles to get to Pejupa where the buses do not travel. Pejupa is a small town with only 100 houses as one woman told me but they are proud of their primary and secondary school along with the health clinic in their town. We arrived at the home of a woman who had formed the committee and Cristina called another woman asking if we could have the meeting for both committees at once. I sat in awe as I watched nearly 20 women all come walking down the hill to the house together, all interested in receiving loans in small committees in order to improve their livelihood and better care for their families. The motivation and commitment to the well being of their family, their children’s future, and the other women in their committee was a continuous inspiration that yes, working with women is an important variable in microfinance and development as a whole. The energy, interest and dedication of these women to be involved stems from the basic human desire to live a happy and healthy life and to take care of the people around them which to me is the key to making social change. I watched as Cristina explained all the requirements and different information about the loans. As she spoke I thought about how hard working and motivated she is for the same reasons as the women in the committee. She has two sweet kids at home, mouths she has to feed and school she has to pay fees for. She works incredibly hard and tells me that she really enjoys her job at the Fundacion. She seems to become friends with the women in her committees, understanding their need to improve their lives because she too is working to improve her own. She was extremely engaged this day, not leaving out any information, explaining the Fundacion’s “Characteristics of an Entrepreneur” with examples that the women could relate to and going over ideas of ways they could use the money with a true concern for their well being.<\/p>\n The women listen closely and it seemed all was going well. Then one woman raised her hand and asked when they could get the money “You will all have to come to Oviedo on Monday as a group for the initial loan disbursement”. The attitude quickly changed, discussion ensued in Guarani that I could not understand but I was very aware of a change in the tone, they seemed frustrated, disappointed and next thing I knew women were getting up and leaving. The women couldn’t afford to take the bus to Oviedo to get their loan for the first time and thus were no longer going to form the committees. Cristina had come all this way, paid for the transportation herself, done an amazing job explaining everything to them and they were leaving in flocks. I watched her quietly, she seemed disappointed but she stood strong speaking with some of the last few women who were also disappointed because they had lost the group that would allow them to recieve a loan. We packed our stuff, said our goodbyes and as we walked away I apologized to Cristina, “Solo dios sabe” she said “Only god knows” and she explained to me that there must be a reason that it didn’t work out, maybe they wouldn’t pay back in time or something would go wrong. We talked about the challenge of transportation, for her and the women alike, we talked about how hard she works, the obstacles she faces and the “que podemos hacer” “what can we do” attitude of we just gotta keep keeping on.<\/p>\n In these two experiences and many others during my time in Paraguay I started to understand microfinance on a whole different level. Every time I went out into the field I was impressed with the motivation of the women, their ability to work together as a team and the high payback rates. At the same time I became aware of many challenges including logistics such as transportation and getting women to meetings when they are working all day long. While spacing out to the sounds of Guarani I wondered how the loans were actually being used, if the women were receiving the necessary education and support needed to help them start small businesses and reach the ultimate goal of bringing their families out of poverty, and one of the biggest questions… how will we ever know? I became acutely aware of the challenge of collecting poverty impact data and left impressed with the quantity of loans the Fundacion was giving yet still curious about the quality of service each women received and the true, long term effects on their well being.<\/p>\n One of the women working at the store she started using the loan<\/p><\/div>\n A new committee forming with the ribbon cutting ceremony<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I sat in a cold damp room surrounded by women asking questions about the women’s committee they had just formed in which they would receive collective loans. The sounds of Guarani spun around the room and I watched the baby pigs wrestling outside frustrated at my inability to understand the language. “What am I doing … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>