A Tragic Fire in Roatán

The closest I got to the beach that weekend was on the back of the motorcycle traveling between clients’ homes.

Roatán receives thousands of tourists each year but the island’s largest peak season is now, with Semana Santa (Holy Week) having just passed. From Spring Breakers to retirees, foreign tourists flock to this island off the coast of La Ceiba in larger numbers to enjoy the beautiful beaches that the island has to offer. However, my trip two weeks ago as the peak season got underway served a different purpose.

While most tourists are not able to venture off the beaten path, neighborhoods such as these are where you will find Adelante clients.

The Roatán zone from our La Ceiba Branch Office currently serves over 300 clients, many of whom invest in businesses to serve the tourism industry, while many more run businesses serving the local communities. Despite the luxurious resorts offered to incoming guests, many locals continue to suffer in poverty. One such woman is Adeline.

Adeline is a proud and bold woman who raised eight children on her own and has had two grandsons, 12 and 13 years old, in her care since they were very young. The difficult economic situations she has faced prevented her from being able to learn to read and write and laments that there simply was not enough money to send her children to secondary school.

Adeline is a native of Roatán–a Caribbean island known for beautiful beaches and expensive resorts. The poverty that her and many other natives of the island suffer from is often left unseen.

As a native to the island, Adeline is a native English speaker but also speaks Spanish. With greater migration into the island from mainland Honduras, Spanish is becoming more widely spoken there and many natives feel an amount of resentment toward this phenomenon. Because of this, Adeline and the other members of the group were thrilled to get a chance to have me there to chat in English.

I met Adeline while the Roatán Zone Credit Officer was working hard to get credit evaluations and other work done before the Semana Santa work holidays. These evaluations take place prior to each loan cycle to review the needs of each individual and their current economic situation.

While helping Orville with his credit evaluations, I arrived to the following standard question with Adeline, “Do you own your own home?” The answer I received was not what I had expected: “Well I did but three weeks ago it burned down.” Luckily no one had been at home when the fire started but she still has not been able to figure out the source of the fire. Where she lived, she did not have electricity, ruling out an electrical fire and did not have gas for her stove.

A dish rack and scraps of wood and metal sheeting was all that was left of her home when we returned to the scene three weeks later.

Until she is able to rebuild, Adeline has moved into the home of one of her six sons, about 15-20 minutes away along the unpaved road. She will continue working hard each day at her butcher shop in the market so that she can once again offer a home to her two grandsons, abandoned by their father.

Although pleased to have their grandmother around, Adeline’s grandchildren share in the pain she has suffered from in this recent tragedy.

Despite the various challenges faced by Adeline she continues to grow her business. With each loan cycle, she continues to take on larger amounts and pays back diligently, proving the success she has had within Adelante’s microlending model. Although she has a long way to go to make progress toward a new home, her loan history makes her eligible for our individual loan products. Once she begins rebuilding, Orville hopes to offer her with the support she needs to finish up the construction via a Home Improvement Loan.

Orville looks on with sadness at all that is left of what was once Adeline’s home.

I was personally amazed by how immediately Orville had responded to her tragedy in order to offer her hope for the future. Bringing our clients’ needs to the forefront and addressing how we can solve them is what we see as vital to successfully operating as a microfinance institution while fulfilling our social mission, and this is exactly what April being the Month of Microfinance is all about.

Her fellow Adelante borrowers also brought forth moral support, immediately displaying concern for what had happened. Adeline is very head strong and independent, which had originally made her reluctant to discuss the fire with her friends. However, the support from each of the women and from Adelante staff like Orville gave her enough confidence to open up and reminded her of just what it means to be part of a solidarity group.

Innovative Solutions out of Poverty

Our Board members and a few staff with Carmen outside her home which she has been able to invest in with a Home Improvement Loan

Last month, Adelante’s Board got a chance to visit a few clients of ours outside of La Ceiba. Not only did they get a glimpse into the lives of our clients, they also got a chance to make a few purchases for themselves! The trip started with a visit to Carmen’s home, where she produces delicious sweet breads and pastries that her husband later carries out to the market. Having already tried her pan de piña on a previous visit, I warned a few members ahead of time that it would be hard to buy just one. Carmen’s home improvement project continues to be a work in progress, and our Board marveled at how well she is able to manage her business from such a small working space.

Filena makes these decorative flowers out of recycled aluminum cans to then sell for a profit.

After leaving with plenty of fresh breads, several members joked about what other products they would get to buy at the next client’s home. Fortunately for them, Filena is one of our most creative clients. Filena engages in several business activities which she carries out from her home in a rural area outside of the city. She makes and sells flowers made from recycled aluminum cans, jewelry and crocheted clothing and decorations for the home.

Filena invests her loans in purchasing her materials and is always hard at work to create beautiful pieces. Her determination is paying off for her, as she is making progress in improving her family’s standard of living. She is now a recipient of Adelante’s Home Improvement Loan product for about $1,490. Her creative style made for great souvenirs for our Board Members, giving her a boost in her day’s profits. With such numerous skills, I was shockedd to learn that Filena’s talents are all self-taught, developed on her own through perseverance and commitment to improving her family’s standard of living. Thanks to the business loans that Filena has taken out with Adelante over the years along with assemblies every two weeks, she has been able to expand upon her business ideas to handle a much larger loan than an average Adelante loan.

Blanca shows off earrings and other jewelry that she makes from home.

Our last client visit of the day followed the trend of empowered women producing goods from their homes. Blanca makes and sells jewelry, crochet and flower arrangements at home outside of Jutiapa, presenting our Board members with another souveneir opportunity. Each of these three women have worked hard to identify and develop their own skills to get their families ahead.

This Friday is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate all that women are, the advances we have made and what we need to continue moving forward. On March 8, Adelante will be celebrating Carmen, Filena, Blanca and the thousands of other women who have taken on the challenge of leaving poverty behind by investing in their own businesses. Their innovative solutions in the face of poverty are an inspiration to everyone at Adelante.

Are you interested in supporting this content, as well as taking on grant research and writing responsibilities and campaign development as our Development Intern? Check out our posting here and apply!

Making a Difference on Giving Tuesday

#GivingTuesday is a movement started up to promote charitable donations following the excess shopping we indulge in over the course of Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Last Thursday we all gave thanks for what we have in our life. My own Thanksgiving this year was less traditional than usual but still gave me the opportunity to reflect on what I am thankful for.

As the only American sitting at a table with new friends from Switzerland, Germany, Iran and Austria last Thursday, they were all eager to know what I was thankful for. Although I was not able to be with my family at home in the United States eating turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and my grandma’s famous cavatelli, I knew I had a lot to be grateful for.

Join us today on Giving Tuesday and support the women that I am lucky to meet on a regular basis across eight Honduran departments: Atlántida, Islas de la Bahía, Cortés, Colón, Yoro, La Paz, Intibucá and Choluteca. Donate here and leave your comments below to tell us what you’re thankful for.

Heavy Rains and Hurricanes’ Impacts in Honduras and New York

Marta with her 22 year old daughter and 3 year old granddaughter

Marta Rosa is a new client from Choluteca on her first loan cycle. She became a part of Adelante to increase production of enchiladas and tacos that she makes and sells alongside her 22 year old daughter. Although Marta has been doing this for many years, last October’s heavy rains left her and her family homeless. Her two sons have not been able to secure steady jobs, being forced to settle for seasonal agricultural employment.

The devastating rains of last year remind us of why Adelante began in the first place—in response to the devastation left by Hurricane Mitch. However, for me, a native New Yorker, her story makes me reflect on the damage just recently left behind by Hurricane Sandy and last year’s Hurricane Irene. I was thankful to see Hurricane Sandy pass by a few weeks ago without leaving any or minimal damage to my own family and friends. Last year, my family was not so lucky.

I was in Quito, Ecuador on orientation last August when I first heard about a hurricane heading toward New York but the news I had read seemed to predict greater problems for New York City and other downstate areas than where my family lives outside of the capital of Albany. After getting to Guayaquil, where I would be studying during the fall semester of my senior year, I got a call from my parents. Although New York City had been spared much predicted damage, parts of Upstate New York and Vermont were not so lucky.

After losing power the day before, my family had been woken by police at their door around 1:00 am to evacuate their home in late August. They loaded what they could into their car but most of my belongings that I had left while I was abroad remained in the basement. In the rush of moving out of my apartment and packing for my semester abroad, I was left with little time to label or organize the boxes I was leaving behind. For the next two months, my parents stayed with family and received the support of members of the community who were not affected.

Down the street from my house on one side is a lake where I had learned to swim and on the other side, a river where I watched the Village of Scotia water ski shows and fireworks as a child. The rains that hit my town resulted in the overflow of the Gilboa Dam, flooding from the lake and river into my town and water eventually breaking through the foundation of my house. By the time I arrived back from Ecuador, the house was almost done with repairs and my parents had been able to resume their normal lives.

The devastation that my family and others were faced with was also often met with community support and generosity. When I spoke with Marta, many things raced through my mind. In her rural community, about an hour out from the closest city, were police officers able to be effectively assisting with evacuations? Even if they could evacuate people from areas in danger, would they all have had somewhere to go? Unlike my parents, she certainly did not have flood insurance to cover at least some of the costs. Moreover, Marta’s neighbors do not have the same capacity to support each other during these disasters that my family’s community does.

Marta has been renting this house from a neighbor since she lost her home in the floods last October. She hopes that her business will bring her the profits she needs to buy a new home in the future.

After losing her home, she was able to move into a rental owned by a neighbor, where she lives with her three children all in their 20s and her three year old granddaughter. Her husband passed away 15 years ago so they must all work together to cover their household expenses, which now include the cost of renting and will soon include her granddaughter’s school expenses. Her two sons both work in agriculture, typically finding work during harvest season. During other times of the year, it is harder for them to find work, making Marta’s business even more vital to the well-being of her family.

Marta and her 22 year old daughter run their business together making and selling tacos and enchiladas in the community. They share responsibilities in making the food, and her daughter goes out to sell their food while she cares for her granddaughter. After relocating and reestablishing their business after last year’s rains, they are starting to build up a new clientele. Marta is proud of the work she and daughter do, saying, “She goes out everyday to sell the food we make and now those who have tried it love it and go looking for her to buy more!”

Marta’s dream is to someday have a home that she can call her own again. In July she took out her first loan for $166. She hopes that with the new investment, she will be able to grow the business that she and her daughter have developed together and eventually be able to own her own home again.

Marta’s granddaughter, aged 3, poses for the camera while her mom and grandmother make tortillas.

Fulfilling Dreams of a Better Home and Business

Carmen is a client from the department of Atlántida who bakes bread and pastries for a living, a business that she has had for five years. When I first met Carmen, she shared with me that building a kitchen was her her most sought after goal. With the help of Adelante‘s Home Improvement Loan product, she is now able to make her dream a reality for her family. She began with Adelante about two and a half years ago with a loan for about $126 and is now receiving her second Home Improvement Loan, with which she is building a kitchen. With her first Home Improvement Loan for L15,000 ($762), Carmen was able to replace her doors, windows and the wooden beams that support her roof. Her new loan for L18,050 ($925) will allow her to build an annex which will serve as the kitchen and dining room for both her family and out of which she will continue her business.

On the right, Carmen’s kitchen is beginning to take form.

Carmen lives with her husband and four children between the ages of 7 and 12. Her home currently has two bedrooms and a small main room which serves as the living room and kitchen. The Home Improvement Loan will bring great changes to Carmen’s life, as it will allow her to have greater space to work while caring for her four children.

Carmen’s freshly baked pastry filled with pineapple jam

 

With her small oven she bakes various types of breads and pastries, including the Honduran specialty, semitas, and pastries such as the one tp the right stuffed with pineapple jam. Carmen also bakes cakes for her customers upon request. While Carmen bakes and attends to clients at home, her husband goes out to sell her bread and pastries at a local market. I got the chance to try one of her pineapple stuffed pastries myself and would definitely stop by frequently for her baked goods if I lived in her community.

In this small corner Carmen currently does all the baking for her business, in addition to cooking for her family of six.

The construction started in September and will continue slowly as the rainy season is starting up. When the project finishes, she will no longer have to divide her already small living room into two to make room for her business. Before starting with Adelante, Carmen had worked with other microfinance institutions but left when a friend invited her to join her assembly. As she continues to grow her business, she plans in the future to build a septic tank with the profits from her business. With each loan Carmen makes with Adelante, she is raising her family’s standard of living and improving her business to make her more self-sufficient.

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

Meet an AA Client from Choluteca

Scroll down to the third paragraph if continued from our August 2012 E-Newsletter

Home Improvement Loan at work

Lucila is a hard-working elderly woman who has been a client with Adelante for a year and a half.  Lucila lives alone in a humble home built nearly twenty years ago in a rural village outside of Orocuina, which is located in the southern department of Choluteca.  Several months ago, the wall of Lucila’s bedroom collapsed after a very severe rainy season that wreaked havoc in Choluteca last year.  Akin to the reality faced by much of the rural poor, Lucila did not have the income or the savings to repair the damage immediately.  Thankfully, Lucila quickly became an AA client with Adelante, which made her eligible for a Home Improvement Loan.  AA clients must have at least three loan cycles, make their loan payments on time, and attend assembly meetings consistently.  In March, Lucila was awarded a loan of L. 5,000 or $263 to build a new wall for her bedroom.  Since the rural poor often struggle to enhance their housing over several years, this new loan product is in high demand by our clients.

Not only is Lucila grateful for Adelante’s Loan Program, but she is also an enthusiastic supporter of the Business Education Program.  At assembly meetings held every two weeks, clients receive educational presentations from their Credit Officers.  Even though Lucila has worked as a micro-entrepreneur for nearly her entire life, she still appreciates the business development themes, she explains:

Lucila, Adelante client

¨The educational lessons help us with our businesses, for example they explain how to manage and promote our businesses better so that we can earn more profits.¨

Before withdrawing her first microloan from Adelante for just L. 1,500 or $79, Lucila always worked as a small business entrepreneur, investing in different income-generating activities.  Currently, Lucila produces and sells snack foods and fresh fruit juices out of her home and door-to-door in her community.  In the past, Lucila worked with other lending institutions to support her small business endeavors.  Now Lucila no longer obtains loans from other sources, and she proudly confirms that she is a client exclusively with Adelante.  Lucila affirms, ¨With Adelante, there are not a lot of requirements to take out a loan, and it’s very easy, not complicated like with some of the other institutions I have worked with in the past.¨ In the future, Lucila plans to maintain her AA status in hopes of obtaining another Home Improvement Loan so she can keep upgrading her modest home.

Lucila’s Rural Community

Since each of her seven children are grown and live apart, Lucila is not responsible economically for anyone else but herself, though she does take pleasure in spending time with her family.  One of Lucila’s daughters lives in the same community, so she often keeps her mother company at the house.  Lucila’s children who live further away often go to her house to spend the night, and she enjoys visits with her grandchildren, nine in total.  Lucila is very fortunate to have a tight-knit family, but her children also suffer from poverty so having a micro business enables her to be independent in her old age.  Recently, Lucila received her fourth group loan from Adelante for 4,000 or $211, which she used to invest in producing more delicious homemade food and drink.  Lucila expects to keep boosting her profits over future loan cycles in order to continue improving her standard of living.

2011 Achievement: Home Improvement Loans

Brenda, recipient housing loan

Brenda has been a client with the Adelante Foundation for nearly four years, receiving her first loan for $53.00 in order to invest in a small business selling clothes.  Over eight loan cycles, Brenda’s improved income has ensured an education for her daughter and supported better health and nutrition for the entire family.  However, Brenda and her husband have long wanted to renovate their home, a one room house with bamboo walls and an aging zinc roof.  The bamboo walls are especially problematic since rain water enters the home easily, soaking their bed and belongings.    The couple has only been able to save enough money to replace one small wall section with concrete laminates.  Unable to receive a loan from a bank, they would have expected to improve their home over the coming years little by little.

Brenda's home before: Bamboo wall

In September 2011, Brenda and her husband were granted a loan from the Adelante Foundation for $684.00 so they could enhance their living conditions.  The launch of this new low-interest loan product targeted at home improvements is one of our greatest achievements in 2011.  From August to November, $15,730 has been disbursed to 22 clients throughout Honduras.  Housing loans are available to AA clients like Brenda, who have an excellent repayment record and stellar assembly meeting attendance.  Clients who are eligible must also demonstrate that they have a visible need for improvements to their homes or business spaces.  The decision to offer this type of loan product stemmed from the realization that clients often use capital that could be invested in their small businesses to renovate their homes.  It is also apparent that it takes the rural poor years to save income in order to carry out construction projects.

After: New walls & roof

With the loan awarded from the Adelante Foundation, Brenda and her husband replaced the bamboo walls with concrete laminates, which was the most critical renovation, Brenda reveals, ¨My daughter is really happy, now the bed does not get wet at night when it rains!¨ In addition, the old zinc roofing was changed and the floors were finished with cement. Brenda and her husband are very satisfied, Brenda confirms, ¨I am thankful for the opportunity and I am going to keep working hard so I do not have problems making loan payments¨.

Delia, recipient housing loan

Another woman who has benefited from the launch of the Home Improvement Loan Product is Delia, who withdrew her first microloan from the Adelante Foundation for only $26.00 over seven years ago.  Over the course of her loan cycles, Delia has invested in selling a variety of different products, including breads, desserts, pastries, and vegetables.  Two years ago, Delia received her first Individual Loan Product, which she used to start a convenience store, and is currently paying off her second Individual Loan for $1210.00.  At the time, the store was a good investment, but since a small supermarket recently opened in her community, sales have plummeted.  Delia decided she would rather invest in a small restaurant, so she began saving income in order to build a new space adjacent to her home.  With three daughters to support in primary and secondary school, Delia feared that saving the income to achieve her goal would take years.  Fortunately, Delia’s AA status with the Adelante Foundation made her eligible for a Home Improvement Loan.  Delia received a loan for $1053.00, which allowed her to build a space for her restaurant venture and ensure the continued improvement of her family’s quality of life.

Delia's new space for restaurant

The stories of Delia and Brenda are just two inspiring examples of how Home Improvement Loans contribute to an improved quality of life for our clients.  While Brenda’s loan directly enhanced her family’s living conditions, Delia’s enabled her to start another small business after her original store took a big plunge in sales.  These two women have demonstrated their hard-work and diligence at growing their micro businesses, which is what made them eligible for this new loan product.  The demand from our clients for Home Improvement Loans is high at each of our five branch offices, and we hope that in 2012 we can award low-interest housing loans to more rural woman in Honduras.