Against the wind, raining and lightening…

August 20, 2008

…We had our meeting with San Mateo women at “Semillas de Amor y Esperanza” (Seeds of Love and Hope) center. Semillas de Amor y Esperanza is a small NGO that operates small community projects in San Mateo. Lyz, our leader and community facilitator, is the founder of this organization. This past Sunday, Lyz and I went to church to ask permission to publicize our program of credit and education in San Mateo during the mass. We also invited them to the meeting for this Tuesday. Twenty women and eight children came to the meeting. We had a lot to plan with the women. We started the meeting in Guatemala time, so we really were tight with time.

We presented to the women the idea of the business education and business advisor. We introduced this idea again because these initiatives of having a business advisor, as a mentor, in addition of business education and vocational training are foreign to them. We also explained that they have to pay a minimal amount for this. We made clear that Namaste will pay 370Q ($50) for each women to participate in the vocational training such as animal husbandry, textile design, etc and each women will pay 25Q ($3) for this service. In addition, Namaste will pay 500Q ($67) for having business education, mentorship and a personal business advisor for each woman; and that woman will need to pay 50Q ($7) for this service. Studies have shown that when people pay services or product then they value more whatever they are paying for. We want these women to feel that they own and “buy” these services. We also explained that we are doing this to see if having all these services and a loan can guarantee women success in their business. Moreover, these Q75 will have a money back guarantee. What this means is that if in the end of the cycle women would feel that it was not worth it to pay Q75 for these services, Namaste will reimburse their money. This policy will furthermore help Namaste to evaluate if the education part is worth it for the client and if the education business and mentorship was delivered effectively. Women were pleased that these services come with a guarantee.

After having explained this important piece, Jim, the program regional assistant, was introduced as the women’s business advisor. Jim explained with examples what he is going to do during this 6 month loan cycle and he asked permission to go their home to proceed with the baseline study and to do the feasibility study for each business this week. Then, we started asking women what are the best time and day that Jim and I can visit them. This part was a little bit hectic and funny as well, especially the part when we asked their addresses. Many women did not know their exact address. We asked them “Donde vives? (Where do you live?) Most of them answered, “Arriba en la loma en un callejon” (up in the hill on the alley). Finally, we founded solutions in how to get their home, and we will see if we actually could get to their home, we will tell you our adventure in finding our client’s home. As you remember, we are implementing the pilot program and we want to evaluate and monitor the progress and impact that the business education, mentorship, personal business advisors and credit have on the women’s businesses and the general social-economic situation. Therefore Namaste team has designed evaluation surveys that we will use to compare results with a control group. This control group will only have credit. San Mateo women are borrowers who are going to receive credit and business education; therefore, we will have three individual meeting at the borrower’s home to before FAPE disburses the credit.

Well, Jim and I will be in San Mateo doing the baseline and feasibility study in the next following weeks. We will be very busy but we will do our best to keep you informed through our blogs. Please do not hesitate to contact us at nelly@namaste-direct if you are eager to know how we are doing. We would love to hear from you.

Moving forward!!!

August 13, 2008

Well, you probably are wondering what is happening with the project in San Mateo. As you probably remember from our past blog, this community has never before received credit. Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) in Guatemala call this type of community a "comunidad virgen" (virgin community). Namaste’s team and partners did a brief assessment to decide if this community could be the first region to launch the microfinance plus program. San Mateo will be part of the pilot program, so we are happy to announce this news to you and to the San Mateo women.

We were on our way to have our second meeting; the weather conditions were not that favorable. It was foggy, raining, and cold. Eighteen women and twelve children came to the meeting at the community center. We were surprised that so few women came to the meeting, when we had expected 100! Well today was "cut day". People call it "cut day" when it is time to cut vegetables in the mountains, so many people were in the campo (country side) doing farming work. You probably are saying, “Wow what a day to be outside cutting the vegetables!” but this is our borrowers' world and we can see how fortunate we are that someone is doing this to get our fresh vegetables to our tables.

Fundacion para la Asistencia de Pequena Empresa (FAPE) is an NGO. They are our partner and they work as a microfinance institution. FAPE has been working with micro entrepreneurs since 1984. FAPE is going to lead the meeting; they are going to handle the credit component of our pilot program in this region. FAPE delegated five local women to be in the pre-credit phase. These women have a lot of experience working with loans in the Guatemala communities. They were aware that many of the women are unable to read and write, so they brought drawings to explain the process, the requirements, the time, and the interest rate of a loan. The FAPE team started the meeting with a prayer. Most people are Catholic and we can see how they incorporate their beliefs in their professional practices.

The FAPE team explained the concepts well, but of course, many women still find this credit concept new. They have a lot of doubts, but they are also shy to directly ask all their questions. We know that women have a lot questions because they converse with Lyz, our community leader and facilitator. There were a few women who asked questions about the loan periods and the type of the business. We told them that the loan officers and the business advisors will work with them to create a business plan to guarantee success in their business. Many women want to raise pigs and it looks like this is a good business there. However, too many businesses like these could hurt them because we will help create too much competition. We decided that we are going to create new ideas for business and see what members of the community buy in Antigua, the near-by big city. This is Bob's idea and we think it is a good concept. Bob suggested that these women need to see internally what they need from outside of the community and create a business selling or doing what they get outside of their community. Transportation costs are becoming too high to buy most goods outside of your town. Therefore, we will work next Tuesday exclusively in this idea, so if you have any ideas that you would like to share with us for a business for our new clients, please write to me to nelly@namaste-direct.org. We definitely will share your ideas with them.

Lyz and I are also going to visit the mass this Sunday, where we will talk in the church to communicate officially that we will start the credit of Namaste in the community. Keep track of our blogs to learn about our success and challenges in the pilot program.