African Heritage Month in Honduras

Here at Adelante, April is not just the Month of Microfinance–it’s also African Heritage Month in Honduras! To learn a little bit more about what we are celebrating, check out our new blog post written by three Adelante staff members of Garífuna descent: http://www.adelantefoundation.org/en/read-our-blog/42-from-the-field/170-african-heritage-month-in-honduras

Celebrating the rhythm of La Punta during the 216th Anniversary Celebrations of the arrival of the Garifuna to Honduras

We have now moved our blog posts to our website but will continue to feature summaries here! 

 

Economic Interdependence in Rural Communities outside Trujillo

Maira shows off the topogigio she bought from her Adelante compañera, Amada.

The smell of fresh bread is in the air and Maira is hard at work producing more! Maira makes her freshly baked bread every day for her customers, mainly friends and neighbors from within her own community in the department of Colón. She also runs a small convenience store from her home, as well as renting out her five horses to customers to carry loads or as a form of transportation. Friends and neighbors are an incredibly important part of the success of Adelante clients, as local interdependence is necessary in such rural parts of Honduras.

In the one bedroom home that she rents, Maira lives with her six children between the ages of four and 16. Although transportation for all of her children is costly and can be difficult, she is proud to say that all of her children are in school, with her youngest starting kindergarten. Between school fees and transportation, costs can vary week to week but can reach up to $4 per child per week. Although this might seem minimal at first, with six children this adds up to almost $100 a month. To reduce costs, her older children ride her horses to school when they are available.

Maira started her small businesses with her own savings but uses Adelante loans to expand upon them. Her most recent loan of $167 was used toward the purchase of two horses, in addition to the three that she already had. As we chatted in her fellow assembly member’s home, she glanced over to Amada’s cooler and expressed one of dreams for the future, “I want to buy a new cooler. Mine doesn’t work anymore so I can’t sell items like these that Amada can sell. This will help me to earn more money.”

Amada shows off her scale, which helps her ensure that she charges the right price based on weight.

However, without her own cooler, Maira will continue to fuel the economic success of her assembly members’ own businesses. Amada is a 68 year old client who lives next door to the assembly meeting place. She also runs her own convenience store but unlike Maira, is able to sell topogigios (a popular frozen juice) and other perishable goods. After the meeting, Maira  bought a guanábana flavored topogigio from Amada and noted that Amada and her other fellow assembly members buy her fresh bread and other products from her convenience store. The women commented that with the variance in the products they offer, they are able to buy from each other and stimulate the local economy.

Amada and Maira are wonderful examples of what Adelante is working so hard to achieve, and that is both independence and interdependence within the communities we are working in. There is nothing more amazing than watching these incredibly hard-working women inspire their families and encourage others to join them in their success!

Amada’s convenience is located in her home, where she sells all types of spices, seasonings, snacks, perishable products and staples including rice, flour and sugar.

To read more about Maira and Amada’s community and the journey that their Credit Officer takes to get there, subscribe to our monthly newsletter to receive the coming November issue!

Adelante Entrepreneur Uses Profits to Improve Her Family’s Living Conditions

Glenis Adelina, an AA client from Colon

Glenis is an Adelante client from a small rural community in Colon. For her assembly’s bi-monthly assembly meetings, Glenis’ house is the meeting spot. She is proud of this house, as she has only just recently finished construction on it. The construction was a work in progress for a couple of years but thanks to the profits from her two businesses, she has been able to complete the project.

We have written about several other clients in recent months who have received Home Improvement Loans from Adelante since this product was launched last July, including Lucila, Mirtila, Brenda and Delia. However, Glenis’ story is different; Glenis was able to use her profits to invest in her home improvements, rather than having to request a loan to finance the improvements.

Glenis began with Adelante three years ago with a loan for L3,500 ($178) and has steadily increased her loan requests to her current loan cycle for L18,200 ($916). The loans are used to stock her two small businesses. During the week, Glenis has a stand outside a local school where she sells fruits, juices and candy. On Sundays, she takes advantage of the local soccer team’s presence to sell both used and new clothing and accessories outside of the stadium during games. When the team is away, she travels on the road to make sales at the stadiums where they play.

Side view of Glenis’ house

Glenis is married and lives with her mother, husband and 16 year old son. A relative and her 2 year old daughter have also moved into the house recently. Glenis, her husband and her mother all work to provide support for the household but they now must also support the two new members of the  house. The increased earnings she has received since beginning with Adelante and particularly in the past year, have enabled her to expedite the completion of the project that would have otherwise taken much longer.

Front view of Glenis’s home

Glenis is thankful to now have a tin roof over her family’s heads and be able to provide them with electricity, cement flooring and walls, saying, “I’ve been able to use my earnings to build this house, before we had none of this”. We are thrilled to see the improvements that Glenis has been able to make since she began working with us.

Glenis does not yet consider her efforts in improving her family’s standard of living complete. Her next project will be to install ceramic tiles over the cement floor. Unfortunately, not all of our clients are in the position to take up projects such as these without support. This is the reason for beginning our Home Improvement Loans a little more than a year ago. Whether the loan helps to put in place a secure roof, install electricity or build an annex for the small business, the loans share a common result: improved living conditions for the family.

The improved living standards that our clients enjoy from improvements to their homes is significant particularly because of the size of our clients’ households. Although Honduras has lowered its fertility rate from years past (7.5 children per woman in the 1970s[1]), rural fertility rates have long been higher than in urban areas–in 1993, rural women had an average of 8.7 children compared to the urban average of 5.3. (1). This disparity between urban and rural areas is partially due to lower education and and less access to contraception in rural areas (2). Although recent statistical breakdowns between rural and urban areas are not available, I expect that the rural rate continues to be higher than the national average of 3.01 (3). Just among the 20 women I have met so far, the average is more than five children per woman–including two women with twelve children each.

With greater numbers of children in the household, and households often being made up of extended family members, the effect that these home improvements have can be dramatic and certainly expand beyond the average US household size. The reach of each Home Improvement Loan and of each woman who is able to use her profits to invest in better living conditions makes our efforts all the more urgent.

(1) Source: Monga Bay. Honduras-Population Growth www.mongabay.com/history/honduras/honduras-population_growth.html

(2) Source: Guttmacher Institute. Early Childbearing in Honudras: A Continuing Challenge. 2006 http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/10/13/rib_Honduras_en.pdf

(3) Source: CIA World Factbook 2012 www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ho.html

Passing Success from Mother to Daughter

Lidia with her daughter Lia and her two granddaughters. The daughter of another client stands in front.

Lidia Maura has been an Adelante client for five loan cycles now, or about 3 years. Her most recent loan was for L4,600 ($234). Although she has spent her life selling vegetables in rural communities outside of Tocoa in the department of Colon, she previously spent her days traveling all day to make her sales. Now, thanks to the help of Adelante, Lidia has her own stall in a popular local market, working from 6:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon.

Her five children, between the ages of 28 and 43, are now independent so she lives alone with her husband. During my visit she told me that she does not have the same concerns as the other women have who are still raising children, grandchildren or nieces and nephews. She tells me, “I’m old now and my only hope is just to finish the last years that God has given me comfortably.” Lidia’s satisfaction with Adelante is what drove her to invite her daughter, Lia Isabel into her assembly.

The assembly meeting that I visited was Lia’s very first with Adelante and she spoke with hope for a better future for her own two daughters. Although her husband works hard every day at his own job, Lia’s family has struggled a lot just to get by. When I asked her if there’s anything she would like others to know about her, she told me this, “We suffer a lot, we don’t have a house, we don’t have anything to call our own but we continue fighting.” Lia is optimistic about her new opportunity with Adelante. With her first loan, she plans to start up her own business selling clothing. We hope to see her progress as she works to provide greater opportunities for her two daughters who are two and four years old.

Lidia and Lia’s story is seen replicated throughout many assemblies, with mothers, daughters, aunts, nieces and cousins sharing with each other the opportunity to improve the standard of living of themselves and their entire family. One such client who has shared with her daughter the benefits of her loans with Adelante is Reyna, who lives in a rural community outside of La Ceiba. Reyna has had six loans with us, starting at L3,000 ($152). She has slowly grown her business selling clothing so that she can now take out loans for L5,250 ($266). Although this amount may still seem small to some, it makes a big difference for Reyna, who never had a full time job before. She says that she would occasionally wash clothing for local families for a small fee and do other small chores but that she could not provide a steady income to supplement her husband’s work as a day laborer.

Reyna with her daughter in their community.

Reyna’s youngest daughter is not a client of Adelante. However, her mother’s work is what inspired her to choose to study Business Administration as her career track at the local high school. She hopes to help her mother out and eventually have her own business someday.For now, Reyna just wants her daughter to stay in school and continue studying hard.

Reyna’s story demonstrates exactly how Adelante loans have a ripple effect, positively impacting those who live with and around the clients. While her daughter can learn the theories behind business administration in school, she can see firsthand the realities of running your own small business from her mother. The business education that Reyna, Lidia, Lia and the rest of our clients receive twice a month does not stop with them: The knowledge they acquire is passed to their friends and family, even if they are not Adelante clients.

Discord & Human Rights Violations in Bajo Aguan

African Palm Plantation, Colon

International press has recently brought attention to the agrarian conflict in an area known as Bajo Aguan, which is in the Honduran department of Colon.  The Adelante Foundation team has received inquiries from our generous supporters about the on-going land crisis.  For this reason, we would like to take this opportunity to inform our followers about the discord and human rights violations taking place in Bajo Aguan.

The conflict involves a land dispute between peasant farmers and wealthy landowners.  Peasant groups are occupying African palm plantations that they believe belong to them, arguing that the land was illegally sold to wealthy landowners in the 1990s.  Over the last two years, dozens of people have died, many of those killed were peasant farmers who reclaimed their lands as part of the movement.

In recent months, CNN and the New York Times have published articles on the violence in Bajo Aguan, and international organizations have been recognizing human rights violations since the conflict erupted.  A fact finding mission to Bajo Aguan, undertaken by several international organizations, documented the repressive tactics aimed to quell peasant movements, from intimidation to murder.  The director of Human Rights Watch released a statement calling on the Honduran government to conduct an impartial investigation into the killings of peasant farmers.  Amnesty International urged its supporters to take action against the forceful eviction of peasants.  These and other organizations are concerned about the state’s failure to protect its citizens in Bajo Aguan, and they criticize the Honduran government for not developing a comprehensive resolution to the dispute.

Photo credit La Prensa Honduras

The Adelante Foundation’s branch office in Tocoa serves the department of Colon with microcredit, which contributes to poverty alleviation in rural Honduras.   Clients from Bajo Aguan have been affected by the persistent tension in the area.  The main problem cited by our clients is the general climate of insecurity, which encourages delinquency and petty crime.  Women face a greater risk venturing out to sell their products, and the recent instability has impacted their small business sales.  Under the current circumstances, many people are reluctant to leave their immediate neighborhoods. President Lobo has escalated military and police presence in Bajo Aguan, stationing personnel permanently in order to maintain security. An Adelante Foundation client admitted that the military occupation is not a solution to the land conflict, a sentiment presumably shared by many residents of Bajo Aguan.

The current land dispute has its roots in the 1970s, when the Honduran government launched an agrarian reform campaign, redistributing lands to various peasant cooperative associations in Colon department.  In the early 1990s, these lands were sold to wealthy landowners eager to expand African Palm cultivation.  Dinant Corporation is the most prominent actor in the dispute, with over 22 000 acres of African Palm plantations, which is over one fifth of the agricultural lands in Bajo Aguan(1).  African Palms are cultivated in order to produce palm oil, which is exported as a biofuel and also used in the production of numerous household products and processed foods.

Photo credit Norwegian People's Aid

Peasants claim that the lands in question were illegally sold, an assertion supported in a report published by an International Observation Mission, which documented  human rights abuses in Bajo Aguan.  The most notable peasant group to have emerged is MUCA (Movimiento Unificado del Aguan or the Unified Peasant Movement of Aguan), which is demanding land sales from the 1990s be voided. Prior to the coup that ousted Manuel Zelaya in June 2009, an agreement was negotiated in an attempt to resolve the agrarian conflict.  Following the coup, the agreement was never enacted by the interim government or by President Lobo’s newly elected government.  MUCA aimed to pressure the Lobo administration by undertaking land invasions of selected plantations in Bajo Aguan.  These actions have sparked a wave of violence against the peasant movements, and since President Lobo was elected, over 40 peasant farmers have been killed, and several others, including private security forces, police, military, and innocent bystanders have lost their lives in Bajo Aguan(2).

In September 2011, the National Congress of Honduras approved a deal that attempts to resolve the discord.  The state will buy land from Dinant Corporation, allowing members of two peasant groups to purchase land with state guaranteed bank loans.  Dinant Corporation is expected to earn 546 million Honduran lempiras (or nearly $29 million) from the state’s land purchase, if the transaction occurs this coming January(3).  However, other peasant groups claiming lands have been left out of these negotiations.  Furthermore, the militarization of Bajo Aguan is of great concern given the documented collaboration between state security forces and private guards in repressing the peasant movements(4).  No arrests have been made for the murders of peasant farmers, extending impunity to perpetrators of violence. Last month, a human rights observatory was permanently established in Tocoa in order to document on-going human rights abuses in the area.  Hopefully, the mounting international attention on human rights violations will push the Lobo administration to confront these injustices.

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(1)Malkin, Elizabeth. ¨In Honduras, Land Struggles Highlight Post Coup Polarization¨ New York Times.  Sept. 15 2011.

(2)¨Honduras: Investigate Killings of Peasants¨. Human Rights Watch.  Sept. 9 2011.

(3)¨Inauguran observatorio de DD HH en Bajo Aguan¨ El Heraldo. Nov. 15 2011.

(4)International Observers Mission. ¨Honduras: Human Rights Violations in Bajo Aguan¨ International Fact Finding Mission.  July 2011.

Microfinance in Colon

Parque Central & Church Trujillo

The department of Colon, which cradles the Caribbean Sea, owes its name to Christopher Columbus (Cristobal Colon in Spanish) who went ashore on his final voyage to the Americas.  The calm, deep waters of the Bay of Trujillo were ideal for a commercial port, and today Trujillo remains the capital of the department.  Over the course of history, the economic and political centers of Honduras developed elsewhere, and today Trujillo is a quiet, appealing town set along the wide blue bay.

The Adelante Foundation has been serving the department of Colon with microcredit for almost a decade.  Before opening the branch office in Tocoa in 2003, the La Ceiba branch managed the loan pools in Colon.

Ana Rosa

Ana Rosa remembers when the loan pools in the area were managed by a Credit Officer based in La Ceiba.  Ana procured her first microloan from the Adelante Foundation for L1500 or $75.00 in order to improve inventory for her small business selling clothes.  When Ana’s husband passed away, Ana decided to move to San Pedro Sula in order to work in a textile factory, leaving her two teenaged children behind with her sister.  Ana spent three years working in San Pedro Sula, but the distance from her family became too much to bear.  Ana returned to her community in the municipality of Saba, and once again joined an Adelante Foundation assembly group.  Currently, Ana is on her second loan cycle and has invested her microloans in selling meat and lactose products at her sister’s pulperia (convenience store).  Although Ana admits she earned more money working in San Pedro Sula, Ana gains sufficient income through her micro enterprise and enjoys a more fulfilling life being close to her family.

The Adelante Foundation was able to reach more distant communities once the branch office in Tocoa was opened.  On a recent trip to Colon, I spent a few days based in Trujillo, where I joined the zone’s Credit Officer to visit clients and assembly meetings.  With over two months experience as an International Field Correspondent for the Adelante Foundation, I am accustomed to traveling long distances on motorcycle and venturing out to rural communities.  Nonetheless, I journeyed much farther than I had before in order to visit clients from the municipalities of Limon and Iriona, a dusty two hour commute from Trujillo or Tocoa.  By bus, the trip takes over three hours, sometimes more than four when rains deteriorate the unpaved road.

Elida in her store

In remote communities, small businesses provide access to goods that normally would not be available.  Long-time Adelante Foundation client, Elida, has a thriving micro business selling clothes, shoes, cosmetics, food products and more.  Recently, Elida obtained an individual loan product for L20 000 or $1000.00. Elida has over L100 000 or $5000.00 worth of merchandise in her store, which attests to her diligence reinvesting profits. Still young, Elida has many more years ahead of her as a successful micro entrepreneur.

Improving the quality of life in rural Honduras is about more than just increasing incomes.  My field trips in Colon and throughout Honduras have illustrated how women who have access to microcredit have more opportunities to achieve the things that they have reason to value in their lives (see Sen 1999).  Their quality of life is improved not only through a sustainable source of income, but also by having options.  For example, Ana Rosa chose a more peaceful life in her community close to her family.  By having her own store, Elida can easily take care of her only child, a newborn baby boy, while earning income in order to be a good provider for her family. These and countless other client stories attest to how the Adelante Foundation is achieving positive change in rural Honduras through microfinance.

Talking to strangers

Adelante clients are fantastic, hard working women with amazing life stories! They endure challenges life throws at them with happiness and optimism. When I visit an assembly, I always wonder how all these amazing women ended up together. This is Angela’s story.

Angela Amaya

Angela Amaya is a very kind and timid lady. She is 64-years old.  She is married with one child and two grandchildren. Angela has a prosperous business in her home, which allows her to stay home and help her daughter by taking care for her grandchildren while their mother works. But life has not always been this easy for Angela.

Angela lives in Orica, a community in the department of Colon. Orica is a very rural community without stores, supermarkets, schools or hospitals, and most of the houses are sparsely located. The closest town with these commodities is Tocoa, which is a thirty minute bus ride. Since most people in Orica do not have cars, they depend on others for transportation.

Before having a business at home, Angela sold used clothing in her community, walking from house to house to sell her merchandise. She would also take the bus to visit other communities like hers to sell her products. She used to work extremely hard for minimal profit.  Angela also provided credit to many people in her community, which ultimately led to the bankruptcy of her clothing resale business.

One day, as she was taking the bus to Tocoa, a young woman, Mercedes, sat next to her. They swapped stories of their current jobs – Angela’s frustrations and Mercedes’ success.  Mercedes told Angela about her role as a credit officer for the Adelante Foundation and invited her to come to the next assembly in two weeks. The assembly was close to Angela’s community and she agreed to come.