Microfinance Along Honduras’ Northern Coast

Adelante’s blog has moved! We have brought our blog over to our website to keep all of our content in the same place. We will continue to post short summaries here with link a link to both our English AND Spanish versions so that you can continue to follow our blog from wordpress.

This most recent post is written by a new intern with us, Roos Saalbrink. Here, she writes about her impressions from the field since starting with us earlier this month. Her travels include three different zones of our La Ceiba Branch Office, from the rural outskirts of San Juan Pueblo to the west, to communities past Jutiapa in the east, as well as the Olanchito zone from our Tocoa Branch Office. To read her blog post in English, follow this link: http://adelantefoundation.org/en/read-our-blog/42-from-the-field/173-microfinance-along-honduras-northern-coast

Adelante ha pasado el blog a nuestro sitio web para mantener todo nuestro contenido ahí, y también para poder tener una versión en español. Aquí seguiremos con resúmenes breves con el enlace a nuestro nuevo blog para continuar compartiendo el blog de wordpress. Nuestro nuevo artículo es escrito por una nueva voluntaria, Roos Saalbrink. Ella escribe de sus observaciones en el campo desde empezar con nosotros al principio del mes. Ella ha viajado a tres de nuestras zonas de la Agencia de La Ceiba, en las afueras de San Juan Pueblo por el oeste hasta las comunidades rurales afuera de Jutiapa en el este. También ha visitado la zona de Olanchito servido por nuestra Agencia de Tocoa. Para leerlo en español, haz clic en el siguiente enlace: http://adelantefoundation.org/es/lea-nuesto-blog/42-from-the-field/173-microfinance-along-honduras-northern-coast

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.

Rural Development in La Ceiba

Rio Cangrejal & Pico Bonito national park

As La Ceiba geared up for its annual Carnival celebrating its patron saint, Isidore the Laborer, I decided to refresh my perceptions of the area by getting out into the field again. During the Carnival, thousands of foreign and national tourists arrive to partake in the festive celebrations.  La Ceiba is known as the ¨tourism capital of Honduras¨ given its proximity to beaches, white-water rivers, and national parks.  Moreover, the city’s nightlife district or Zona Viva holds the reputation as the best in the country. Although La Ceiba is rich in culture, nightlife, and natural beauty, many people who inhabit the city and the surrounding countryside are poor and lack opportunities to improve their quality of life.

I joined an Adelante Credit Officer to visit microloan recipients outside of La Ceiba in the municipality of El Porvenir.  La Ceiba’s early growth was propelled by the Standard Fruit Company, which exported fruit crops from the city’s port.  Agricultural exports continue to be an important feature of the economic landscape around La Ceiba, and El Porvenir is notable for its vast pineapple plantations.  The town also shares a shoreline with the Caribbean Sea, which attracts tourists, especially during Holy Week.  Without grocery stores, markets or commercial centers, many residents depend on La Ceiba’s city center for many goods and services, but with the spread of micro-entrepreneurs, this is changing.

Vilma & youngest daughter

Vilma has been a client with Adelante for four years, and is currently paying off a loan for L 13,000 or $684.  This energetic mother of four has three different business ventures: a small restaurant, convenience store, and merchandise stall.  Vilma has big plans for her micro businesses and hopes to bring better prices and a greater diversity of goods to her community.  In the future, Vilma would like to turn her small convenience store into a bodega or small supermarket and move it across the street to another piece of land she owns.  With the extra space, Vilma and her eldest daughter would like to start an internet cafe.  She also plans to use her next loan from Adelante to invest in more sandals and used clothes for her merchandise stall.  Vilma’s entrepreneurial spirit is inspiring and exemplifies how microcredit helps spur greater economic activity in rural villages.

Francisca, Adelante client

Farther along the highway and not far from the popular wildlife reserve Cuero y Salado, another client, Francisca, also illustrates the impact of microfinance.  Over the years, Francisca has succeeded in educating each of her four children, ages 15 to 23, thanks to the income earned from her micro enterprise.  This is an impressive feat considering she is a single mother.  On her property, Francisca runs a snack stall, and her two sons, who both graduated as mechanics, have a car and bike workshop.  Her youngest child is still in secondary school, and her oldest is a teacher at a local primary school.  Not only has Francisca earned a living in her rural village, but she has also helped her children to achieve an education and contribute to the local development of their community.

While La Ceiba is revered for its extravagant Carnival, natural splendor, and relaxed attitude, we must not forget the plight of the rural poor.  That’s why Adelante was founded in La Ceiba in 1999 and began disbursing its first microloans in 2000.  At present, the branch office in La Ceiba is helping more than 1,335 clients work their way out of poverty through small business loans.  Over the years, Adelante has given hope to thousands of women across Honduras, and it all started in La Ceiba over a decade ago.

Orientation

Sitting at a desk in an office, receiving training sessions and reviewing informational materials are familiar activities for most job orientations.  On the contrary, starting out as an International Field Correspondent for the Adelante Foundation necessitates jumping into a role that does not have a training manual.   As an International Field Correspondent, I travel throughout Honduras to meet with clients of the Adelante Foundation, in hopes of bringing their stories to the organization’s generous supporters.

My goal is to report on the stories and other tales from the field, which I trust will make readers feel more connected to the mission of the Adelante Foundation, despite often being so far away.  I would also like to bring forth the issues that shape the livelihoods of the Honduran people.  In doing so, I too will learn a great deal more about this diverse country’s current struggles and past legacies.  In order to accomplish these goals, orientation includes getting to know all of Adelante’s five offices (La Ceiba, Tocoa, El Progreso, La Esperanza, Choluteca), and the eight departments or states (Atlantida, Islas de Bahia, Colon, Yoro, Cortes, Intibuca, La Paz, Choluteca) these branches serve.

The First Few Weeks

In only three weeks, I have already familiarized myself with three of the five branch offices (La Ceiba, El Progreso, and La Esperanza), and four of the eight departments (Atlantida, Yoro, Intibuca and La Paz).  At each office, the goal is to meet the team, learn about the area, and meet clients either individually at their homes or during assemblies (gatherings where clients receive business related education every two weeks).

La Ceiba

I jumped into my new position by visiting assemblies around La Ceiba. Although more urbanized, clients still work hard to provide their families with the basic necessities such as food, electricity, and water.  The women I met in La Ceiba told me of their investments in education for their children, a difficult goal to achieve without sustained income.

Cattle Jam, outside El Progresso

 

 

 

The following week I set out to El Progreso, a city whose growth has been spurred by nearby San Pedro Sula, the economic center of Honduras.  Visiting clients in the communities outside the city, I passed endless plantations of bananas and sugar cane.  Women spoke of their husbands who labor in these fields, receiving minimal wages for long days of arduous work.

Heading west along the north coast from La Ceiba to El Progreso, the landscapes of tropical vegetation, densely inhabited areas and cash crop plantations could not be more different from where I am currently, La Esperanza.

In the highland town of La Esperanza, pine tree topped mountains are evidence of a cooler climate and more rugged terrain.  Communities are often many kilometers apart from one another, and there are few paved roads.

 

 

First Impressions

After meeting a few clients, I realized that my orientation will be more than just a traveling schedule over the next two months.  Adelante’s clients are generally more than willing to share their opinions, discuss their loans and display their businesses.  Nonetheless, I quickly noticed that whipping out a pad of paper and a pen makes even the most extroverted woman nervous; no doubt a formal interview makes me anxious too!  Instead, casual chatting with a client or even a group is a better way of getting to know their stories.  The disadvantage of this strategy is that after leaving I am jotting down every last detail I can remember!

First impressions tells me that the mission of the Adelante Foundation, to improve the standard of living for extremely poor women in rural Honduras, is being met head on through microfinance and small business education.   Loans as little as $50.00 might seem insignificant by the standards of the developed world, but for the extreme poor, microloans make a difference.  Every assembly I visited and every client I met, revealed how their loans have been used in order to boost their businesses and improve their overall standard of living.   My hope over the coming weeks is to continue the process of orienting myself with the remaining offices and departments, where I expect to find the same outcomes of positive change.