Ayudando

St John's University GLOBE Student Fellow, Chinyere Ukaegbu shares her thoughts after visiting PHPG in Matagalpa.

Today's adventure was especially gratifying (and that's an understatement). We met with an amazing non-profit called People Helping People Global. Though they have a couple of locations where they operate here in Nicaragua, we visited their base in Matagalpa. Before getting into the intricacies of the visit, let me begin by offering the cultural scene of Matagalpa. Lined by beautifully painted edifices, Matagalpa stands as this magical, mountainous town who's hilly ups and downs are similar to Montparnasse in Paris. People with joy in their eyes were sprinkled across the streets. Everyone from school girls to men buying food stuffs from pulperias said hola to us as we smiled. But unlike Paris, I felt a strong sense of community in Matagalpa.

We met with two representatives from PHPG: Berly and Martha. From our conversation, we learned a great deal about their organization and even developed some ideas for GLOBE based on what we heard. They explained to us that they give micro loans out with 0% interest because they are all about helping the people (hence their name). I paralleled this with GLOBE because we have very low interest rates and the interest we do collect goes back into helping the communities in which we serve. They also explained to us some of their methods, like checking receipts of borrowers for accountability, that could be used by GLOBE. But the most fascinating tactic they used was their training programs. They provided business training and psychological training (I.e. Counseling). This was especially important because it shows the holistic approach helping a community help themselves. Perhaps GLOBE could provide training and even incentives our borrowers to train other borrowers once they master their successful businesses.

Speaking of businesses, it was also a joy to visit the borrowers from PHPG and see them breaking the cycle of poverty. One borrower, 

Irene, stood out. She makes and sells tortillas (that are delicious might I add) and the loan that PHPG provided allowed her to expand by employing a helper. Now the over 500 tortillas that she makes on a interesting makeshift, firewood stove become a little less of a burden. It was a joy speaking with her and learning how she make the tortillas. I was at awe at how hard she worked. Waking up at 3 in the morning daily to start her work, she was the epitome of hard work and dedication. It made me reflect on my life and how much I have compared to her one room home filled with 5 children. Humbled, I smiled as she stood strong and proud of the tortillas she handed is to eat. 

Until next time,

Chinyere U

This blog was originally posted on GLOBE Student Fellow's site, here.

Borrower Profile Series, Gloria

Guest Post from PHPG Volunteer: Paige Cohn

Gloria, is the matriarch of her medley family.  For most of her life she’s been a single mom of 3 of her own children and the 3 more she adopted, left to support them on her own.  In order to feed her family, she ventured into the world of self-employment.  She been a cook, a seamstress, a farmer, but her most important role is being a Mother.  After her own children were grown and married, she found 3 little girls on her doorstep, abandoned by their parents.  Gloria took these three girls in, adopted them as her own, and is currently working to send them to school.     

Gloria has always been a self-starter.  Having to be self-reliant for most of her life, she feels lucky with the success that she has had in her life.  Whatever she makes, she sells. Her compassion and hard work ethic is something she has instilled in her children, as she encourages them to continue to study, hoping she can buy them the materials they need to complete their education.  After we finished with the interview, Gloria sent us home with a bag full of mangoes and bananas out of her backyard.

Gloria hopes that eventually she’ll be able to save for her retirement, so that she can support herself when she can’t work, forever being the autonomous, self-sufficient matriarch she has always been.  

Before and After

In a week's time one of our clients created a pair of beautiful ceramic topped tables. When we are making our social visits or simply collecting loans our clients are proud to show off what they have built. The loans provided to these small business owners cover a wide variety of goods and services. This is just but one example of the work our loan recipients do everyday.

PHPG would like to extend their deepest gratitude to the BFA Fairfax NHS group! Last night they raised $320.00 for PHPG at the fun and amazingly tasty St. Patrick's Day Valentine's Day Pancake Supper!

The menu was delicious! 3 Types of pancakes, GREEN eggs, sausage, fruit, the one and only really amazing VT pure maple syrup, juices, coffee and smiles! :D

This group did a wonderful job. Thanks so much you guys!

$320 dollars is enough to fund two new microloans in Nicaragua. This will allow two new families to begin their journey out of poverty. Your efforts are greatly appreciated!

Island Hopping

Monday was a busy day for us here in Granada! In addition to the collections in Pantanal, he had a meeting with the local community of Las Isletas. There are hundreds of islands big and small that dot the shores of Lake Nicaragua. Many of these islands are traversed by people who reside in and make their living from the lake. The Granada team adventured out on Lake Nicaragua to round up several local community members in order to get to work on interviewing them about their businesses.

One Stop Shop

The sun was out in full force today! On Mondays we split into two teams to tackle the day's goals. Today, we switched things up and headed out as one unit. The extra companionship of the other team helped keep us going in the hot sun. We stepped into the shade of one of our loan recipient's shops to snap a picture or two.

Martha running her corner store.

Martha provides the local community with all the essentials.

Sunny Day in Pantanal

The year has just begun and we are already busy making collections and interviewing clients for new loans. These are some photos of the various things we do on our outings in Pantanal, Granada.

    Collecting loans from one of our clients.

 

Completing an interview (and asking lots of questions!)

Enmanuel, Juan, and newest volunteer Mimi.

Visit to San Juanillo

Walking into the picturesque village of San Juanillo. Most of the 100 families in this remote part of Matagalpa are farmers.

On this visit we met with Yohanna, the leader of her loan group. Yohanna's family has been cultivating onions for the past twenty years on this land. Here she show's off the seedlings.

 PHPG's first loans in these area where a result of a partnership with EOS and ATDEL. EOS and ATDEL helped the women build ecological ovens. The women who received the oven use the ovens to bake for their own consumption and also to sell in town. In the picture below, Yohanna shows us her oven.  She is looking forward to making roast chicken during the upcoming holiday season.

Our Matagalpa loan officer, Martha, poses in front of the seedlings. Martha's family used to farm in the are Esquipula.Her knowledge about agriculture in Nicaragua has been indispensable to our work here.

Yohanna's group is almost ready for a new PHPG loan, which they would like to use for a new irrigation system. Their current system is labor intensive and requires digging trenches where water can flow around the fields.

Below is a picture of the irrigation system in the fields of Yohanna's neighbor. A system like this would be a big benefit to the group.

January 2013 Update on Nicaragua Happenings

Wow...where do we start? Things have been really hectic with end-of-year fundraising, but we had another great New Years Eve event in Richmond, VA and received tons of generous donations to our holiday drive. Thanks to all of you who donated!

Damaris & Regional Coordinator, Chris Fay,
in front of Damaris' brand-new fuel-efficient oven

While Isabel and I were working state-side on the fundraising, our three Regional Coordinators, Lana, Kyle, and Chris have been doing all sorts of good work in Nicaragua.

Lana and Kyle have been tag-teaming our larger base of operations in the areas surrounding the colonial city of Granada. They both bring strong skills to the table, and they both have hit the ground rolling. Lana joined us in December right before the holidays (which as she found out is an incredibly impossible time to get things done, but they're fun nonetheless), and Kyle arrived in Granada a couple of weeks ago.

They've been visiting all of our communities and soaking up all there is to know about PHPG's presence there. They've been working with our Nica employees, Manuel, Juan Carlos, and Tatiana, to come up with ways to improve our current systems and provide more services to our clients. They have some great cost-effective ideas about how we can provide more than just capital to our clients, which include business trainings and partnerships with other NGOs. We'll keep you updated about their progress as they continue their good work over the next few months.

After observing and training with us for a few weeks in Granada, we sent Chris up to northern Nicaragua to head up a couple of projects there. He's been working on tightening our connection with our clients in Piedras Coloradas and spearheading a partnership with a sustainable technologies organization, named EOS International.

Things are going quite well in Piedras despite a horrible growing season last fall. Our clients have replanted and maintained good repayments. With the coffee harvest in full swing, things should continue to get better. Chris will be interviewing potential clients over the next month or two in order to expand our services to others in the same region.

Lorenzo & Chris in front of the newly-installed
drip irrigation system in Soledad de Cruz

Our most exciting new project that Chris has been working on is a partnership with EOS International. Nine new clients from the town of Soledad de Cruz (in the department of Matagalpa) have had new fuel-efficient ovens or drip irrigation systems installed at their homes. These new technologies are being used to help our clients start or expand small businesses.

The way it works is that the clients receive the technologies upfront, along with some start-up capital (ranging from $50 to $65, depending on the technology). EOS is responsible for creating and installing the technology as well as following up with the clients to make sure it's fulfilling their needs. We are responsible for facilitating the lending and collection process. The technologies have been installed and the first month of collections went quite well.

All-in-all, things are going incredibly well right now. I can't wait to update you on the new projects that we're working on!

Thanks for reading,
Alex