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! 

 

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.

Julieta Castellanos Receives Women of Courage Award

Photo courtesy of La Prensa

Last Friday, Adelante celebrated International Women’s Day with our female main office staff and a group of ceibeña women looking to become more active in promoting economic empowerment among all Honduran women. While we enjoyed our own productive gathering, Julieta Castellanos was visiting the US to receive a Women of Courage Award from US Secretary of State John Kerry and First Lady Michelle Obama. She was among nine recipients from around the world to receive this award, and the only Latin American. The other courageous women hail from Afghanistan, Nigeria, Russia, Somalia, China, Syria, Vietnam and India (1).

Castellanos is the Rector of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras (National Autonomous University of Honduras) and suffered the loss of her 22 year old son at the hands of Honduras’ national police in October 2011. Her son was kidnapped and then murdered in Honduras’ capital city of Tegucigalpa (2). Rather than allowing the tragic death of her son to defeat her, she has risen up further to promote human rights across the country. She continues to speak out against corruption, drug trafficking and Honduras’ high murder rates (1). Last year, Julieta Castellanos was also the recipient of the annual Martin Luther King Jr Award presented by US Ambassador Lisa Kubiske during an event sponsored by the Martin Luther King Jr Foundation and the Instituto Hondureño de Cultura Interamericana. The award recognized her for her work fighting for the “social and democratic rights of the Honduran people” (3).

During the ceremony, John Kerry made an argument that Adelante continues to promote everyday, “Women’s issues, as we know, are more than just women’s issues. They are families’ issues, they are economic issues, they are security issues, they are justice issues” (1). The impact that loans and education have on our clients reach beyond the women themselves, to their families and communities.

Adelante’s work to empower women has a ripple effect: economic opportunities for women offer their families a source of income within their own rural communities to deter migration into urban areas or the US. Often when I speak with the women who have been clients with Adelante for several loan cycles, they are proud of the confidence and self-esteem gained from their improved living conditions and the education received. The improved self-esteem is also often passed on to their daughters and granddaughters, impacting generations to come.

As Adelante continues to work in terms of economic empowerment, we value the importance of Julieta Castellano’s contributions to promote basic human rights throughout the country. To watch the full award ceremony and learn about the work of other Women of Courage, click here: http://www.c-span.org/Events/State-Department-Hosts-Women-of-Courage-Awards/10737438660/.

(1) <http://www.c-span.org/Events/State-Department-Hosts-Women-of-Courage-Awards/10737438660/&gt; March 8, 2013.

(2) Michael Solis. “Castellanos Speaks of Youth’s Dismal Reality”. <http://hondurasweekly.com/201206255480/International/5480-castellanos-speaks-of-youths-dismal-reality.html&gt; June 25, 2012

(3) <http://honduras.usembassy.gov/pr-042012-eng.html&gt; April 20, 2012.

Young Motherhood in Cortés, Honduras

Young mothers like this one use Adelante loans to invest in their businesses and provide for their families.

When meeting someone here for the first time, two of the first questions that are typically asked of me are if I’m married and if I have children. Back in New York, I would be shocked to be asked these questions but here in Honduras, it’s more of the norm for a 22 year old woman like myself to already have children. Amongst our client demographic, the rates are higher than the national averages. According to a report by the Guttmacher Institute, one half of 20-24 year old women give birth by the age of 20, with higher proportions among the least educated (70%), poorest (64%), and those living in rural areas (60%)[1].

With girls and young women becoming mothers at such young ages, marriage–whether formal or informal–also comes into play at an earlier age. However, these unions are not necessarily created out of a desire to build a family together but rather out of economic convenience. When talking with clients about their goals, I’ve heard more than once a woman who lives in a house owned by her husband tell me that she hopes to own her own home in the future, where she can raise her children. These women see greater independence and self-sufficiency as important factors in offering their children a path to a better life.

Karla with her two youngest children, Antonio and Jennifer.

Karla is a young 24 year old mother who lives with her husband in his home in the department of Cortés. She is the mother of three children: an 8 year old boy who lives with his father nearby, and her three year old son and one year old daughter who live with her and her husband. In order to care for her children while making a living for herself, she sells lotions, jewelry and clothing at home. Karla has been selling lotions for about a year and a half but held several jobs before being able to start her own business.

After finishing primary school, Karla left school and started working as a nanny at age 12. During her later teenage years she began working in a kitchen and then worked in a factory attaching the tags to garments.  Working from home, Karla is able to work under better conditions while caring for her two young children. With her husband working everyday in a city a 45 minute bus ride away, Karla must be available to look after her children during the day. She says that her husband’s income does not go toward her own expenses, explaining, “He works for himself and to provide what he needs for our children. I have to work so that I can support myself.”

Karla’s Credit Officer Daniel leading an educational lesson on calculating the costs of implementing a new business idea.

Although she was not able to study past primary school, Karla is now learning how to better run her business. When she started with Adelante, she was only selling lotions. The educational lessons provided by her Adelante Credit Officer every two weeks and her sister’s support inspired her to start selling jewelry. When I had met with her in December, she was getting ready to also begin selling clothing after several recent educational lessons have focused on how to implement a new idea into your business for greater earnings.

Oneida stands outside her home where she hopes to one day start a family.

In another assembly in Cortés, I met Oneida who also makes a living selling jewelry. In addition to her business, she also works as a nanny. There, she makes about $25/week (L. 500) for four days of work caring for two children and washing and ironing the family’s clothing. However, unlike Karla and most of our clients, Oneida does not have any children. Although she is married, she explains, “I want to wait to have children until we are able to support them better.” This perspective is not often found among rural poor Honduran women and is even less frequently practiced.

Oneida’s viewpoint shows hope of a change in the minds of Honduran women in relation to motherhood. However, with 40% of adolescent births being unplanned [1], it seems that among young Hondurans, change in action and not just perspective must occur to reduce the high adolescent fertility rate so that young Honduran women are able to improve their own standard of living before having to worry about providing for a family.

[1] “Early Childbearing in Honduras: A Continuing Challenge”. Guttmacher Institute. September 2006, No. 4. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/10/13/rib_Honduras_en.pdf

Erika: One New Client’s Bright Young Daughter

Erika models the necklace she made after the first day of the workshop.

I met Erika during our Jewelry Making Workshop in Intibucá during October, our most recent offering from our Product Innovation Workshops. At nine years old, Erika was the oldest daughter of a client at the workshop. As the workshop got started, Erika and her mother Rosa sat with the other women who had attended the first workshop, about a third of those in attendance. While her mother and the others at her table picked out new materials to work with and the newcomers got started with their tools, Erika reviewed the beads and material available and observed her mom and the others as they got to work. Erika’s excellent grades and hard work in school made it possible for her to miss two days so that she could accompany her mom to the workshop and learn how to make jewelry with her.

With Erika’s help, Dulce Maria is able to balance learning a new skill with caring for her son. By selling jewelry, Dulce Maria will be able to earn more money and better support her family.

While shy at first, Erika gradually began to talk to the other clients, and eventually became comfortable with me. As she adjusted to the setting at the workshop, Erika started to stray farther from her mom’s side, taking on multiple roles. In addition to making necklaces and earrings at Rosa’s side, Erika helped the other mothers out by acting as babysitter for the younger kids so they could focus on the workshop, cheered on clients who were having trouble with the tools and even helped me out by taking a few pictures. Although she enjoys helping her mother and coming up with new jewelry designs, Erika’s favorite class is math and she wants to be a teacher when she grows up. With her incredible ability to learn, she also revealed a natural teaching ability. Ana is a new client with Adelante and this was her first workshop. While she struggled with the tools, Erika came over to give her some encouragement, telling her, “You just have to remember to keep your hands still. I know you can do it!”. With Erika’s help, Ana learned to relax a little bit and was proud to show me the bracelet she had finally made when I returned to her work station. 

Maria (left) helps Erika become comfortable with the jewelry tools, while her mother looks on.

During the two day workshop, I got a chance to meet several inspring clients but was most deeply impacted by the potential that Erika had shown. Rosa tells me that they live in a somewhat isolated area in the mountains outside of La Esperanza and didn’t have electricity until just four years ago. Like her daughter, she also values education and had worked hard for years so that she could finish her high school degree just a couple years ago, while simultaneously raising her two children. Her economic responsibilities also extend to her mother who has become very sick and has lost the ability to talk. To help her husband cover their family’s expenses, Rosa makes tacos, enchiladas and tamales to sell outside the local soccer field during games every Sunday. Since the first Jewelry Workshop, she has begun to implement this new business and has now taken out her second Adelante loan, a much larger loan than her first–about $370 compared to $165. This larger investment signals to me that her new business venture has taken off well. With Erika’s ambition, Rosa’s new business and both of their hard work, Rosa will see her daughter grow up with greater opportunities than she was offered as a young woman. Like so many of our other clients, Rosa knows that it is up to her to shape the future for her children.

Rosa and Erika stand proudly to accept Rosa’s Workshop Certificate. At the end of the day Rosa told me, “And what she doesn’t know yet, I’ll teach her!”

Adelante and our clients in Intibucá are very appreciative of the support brought forth by Women’s Empowerment International. Without their funding and support, these workshops would not be possible. 

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.

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!

Microfinance Under Fire

Published March 21st, 2011 in the New York Times’ social change blog “Fixes”

Muhammad Yunus, center, outside the high court building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on March 6 where he contested the government’s decision to remove him from his post in Grameen Bank.

At Fixes, our focus is typically on implementing new or underutilized ideas to help those in need. But sometimes it’s just as important to protect institutions that are already working well. Which is why I’m writing today about the Grameen Bank, the Bangladeshi organization that won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, along with its founder Muhammad Yunus, for its work extending microloans to some of the world’s poorest, and has been crucial in global efforts to lift millions of people out of poverty.

Both the bank and Yunus, have come under attack by the government of Bangladesh and its prime minister, Sheikh Hasina Wazed. It has taken 35 years of painstaking effort to build Grameen into a world-class institution that serves millions of poor people. That progress could be lost if the country’s leaders fail to appreciate what makes the Grameen Bank work.

Anyone who cares about international development, microfinance or social entrepreneurship should pay attention. The Grameen Bank is not just the largest microlender in the world, with 8.4 million borrowers (most of them women villagers) who received more than $1 billion in loans last year, it is the flagship enterprise in an industry that, in 2009, served 128 million of the world’s poorest families. It is also a leading example and inspiration for millions of citizen-led organizations that have been established in recent decades to address social problems that governments have failed to solve.

Yunus, the founder of the bank, is an entrepreneurial figure cut from the same cloth as Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple. He has devoted himself since the 1970s to demonstrating, institutionalizing and spreading microfinance. Recently, the government issued ordersthat Yunus is to be removed from his post as managing director of the bank. Yunus has taken the case to Bangladesh’s Supreme Court.

Government officials initially seized on a Norwegian documentary that accused Yunus of improperly diverting funds in 1996 that had been donated by the country’s aid agency. The Norwegian government investigated and found that, while funds were transferred internally from one Grameen-owned affiliate to another, there was no indication that the funds were misused. Since then, government officials have engaged in attacks against Yunus and challenged the work of all microlenders in Bangladesh.

Legally, the government owns 25 percent of Grameen and has the right to appoint a quarter of its board members, including its chairperson. In practical terms, however, the government has little justification to intercede in the bank’s operations. Today, of the Grameen Bank’s paid-up share capital, only 3.5 percent comes from the Bangladeshi government. It is the bank’s borrowers who are its majority owners. They control 75 percent of the board seats and they have supplied 96.5 percent of the paid up share capital. And it’s the savings of villagers — about $1.5 billion — that now finances the bank’s activities and growth.

Nevertheless, the government is proceeding to remove Yunus against the objections of its majority owners and will probably succeed. The stated reason is hollow: Yunus, who is 70, is over the mandatory retirement age in government banks.

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.

Sacrificing Microcredit for Megaprofits

By MUHAMMAD YUNUS

Muhammad Yunus

Published January 14, 2011 in the New York Times

Dhaka, Bangladesh

In the 1970s, when I began working here on what would eventually be called “microcredit,” one of my goals was to eliminate the presence of loan sharks who grow rich by preying on the poor. In 1983, I founded Grameen Bank to provide small loans that people, especially poor women, could use to bring themselves out of poverty. At that time, I never imagined that one day microcredit would give rise to its own breed of loan sharks.

But it has. And as a result, many borrowers in India have been defaulting on their microloans, which could then result in lenders being driven out of business. India’s crisis points to a clear need to get microcredit back on track.

Troubles with microcredit began around 2005, when many lenders started looking for ways to make a profit on the loans by shifting from their status as nonprofit organizations to commercial enterprises. In 2007, Compartamos, a Mexican bank, became Latin America’s first microcredit bank to go public. And this past August, SKS Microfinance, the largest bank of its kind in India, raised $358 million in an initial public offering.

To ensure that the small loans would be profitable for their shareholders, such banks needed to raise interest rates and engage in aggressive marketing and loan collection. The kind of empathy that had once been shown toward borrowers when the lenders were nonprofits disappeared. The people whom microcredit was supposed to help were being harmed. In India, borrowers came to believe lenders were taking advantage of them, and stopped repaying their loans.