Visit from University of Hradec Kralove (Czech Republic) and UNAN-Leon (Nicaragua)

Last weekend of February we had a pleasure to receive a couple of Czech students with two of their professors. Kristina and Matej are students of Latin American Studies from University of Hradec Kralove. They are currently in Nicaragua on their exchange study program at UNAN-León. They have already been here one and half month but most of their time they spend at University Residence for International Students or visiting Nicaraguan most popular tourist places with their foreign friends. That is why they wanted to see “real” Nicaragua. We took them to meet PHPG´s clients in Granada and San Juan de Oriente and showed them little bit of our work. Look how they enjoyed it!

Petra and Juan Carlos during their weekly collections with Czech/Nicaraguan visitors in Pantanal

Visiting our clients in San Juan de Oriente

Explaining pottery production process (San Juan de Oriente)

Some more paper work in San Juan de Oriente

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!

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

Stories from the field: Jaquelina, the Queen of Cashews

Jaquelina Silva is a loan recipient of People Helping People Global. Jaquelina and her family of seven work in the cashew business. Each week they buy sacks of raw cashews to clean, prepare and sell. They are quite happy, because unlike most jobs in Nicaragua their earnings are reliable. A buyer from Costa Rica comes each Sunday to take away however many sacks of prepared cashews they were able to process and bag for that week.

Jaquelina took out a loan from PHPG in October of 2010 to improve her cashew business. One year later not only had she fully repaid her loan, but she had improved her business immensely. With more earned income, she now hires two of her neighbors to help her family with the labor-intensive cashew production. Jaquelina commented, "With more hands to shuck, clean, and toast the cashews, we are able to produce more cleaned cashews at a quicker rate."

On top of adding employees to her family cashew business, Jaquelina has also begun to replace her flimsy scrap metal walls with concrete. "It is a work in progress," she says, "as we continue to make more money from the cashew sales we will continue to improve our home."

PHPG is proud to work with amazing people like Jaquelina. She is both a strong business woman and an amazing role model for the entire community. Not only is she improving the lives of those in her family. She's employing others in her community and helping them improve their lives as well.

Stories From The Field: Living by the Land

Future loan recipient, Apolinar, and her two sons

With all the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, it is easy to forget how wonderful simplicity can be. Meet Apolinar Sanchez and her two sons, Cristobal and Mario. For the Sanchez family, their livelihood depends on agriculture. All year round, year after year, the Sanchez clan plants, tends, and harvests crops in their family fields. They produce the staple crops of Nicaragua, such as beans and corn.

Behind them in this photo, you can see a pile of dried corn. Their task of the day is to manually husk and shuck six bags before sun down. This task may seem tedious to some but to the Sanchez family it is a job they take pride in, and they really enjoy doing it together.

Apolinar's family lives in a community called Piedras Coloradas. The center of their community has an elementary school and a church, but not a single market or stores. A stream runs behind the Sanchez home. This is their only source of water -- for drinking, for cooking, and for bathing. A bed with no mattress stands in the corner of their home. I did not ask where all seven of the family members sleep.

As I quickly tried to take all of this in, Apolinar's two grandchildren came running home from school and jumped onto her lap. A smile stretching from ear to ear appeared on her face, and she told me (in Spanish), "This land has been in my family for decades. Although we do not have much, we have our harvest and each other. What else could I ask for?"

Apolinar Sanchez is part of our first expansion group in Piedras Coloradas, Nicaragua (about 2 hours by bus from the nearest city, Matagalpa). Her lending group will begin receiving loans in March 2012. If you would like to help fund loans for this community, please visit our donation page and indicate in the special instructions "Donation to Piedras Coloradas."

Micro-Lending Group Fights Poverty by Connecting Donors with Entrepreneurs Thousands of Miles Apart

Hey guys,

Below is a press release describing our new website features. Please let your friends know, and if you have any connections to media outlets, please forward them the information. Thanks much, and take care.

Alex

Micro-Lending Group Fights Poverty by Connecting Donors with Entrepreneurs Thousands of Miles Apart

Fairfax, VT, Tuesday, August 10, 2010 – People Helping People Global (PHPG) , a Vermont-based nonprofit, has just introduced a new website that will attempt to revolutionize philanthropy as we know it. This new website allows donors from all over the world to donate directly to entrepreneurs in Central America. “Instead of writing a check to a big nonprofit and hoping that your donor dollars make their way to the right place, we’ve set up a system that allows you to choose exactly where your hard-earned money is going,” said Alex Tuck, co-Founder and Executive Director of PHPG.

Informational meeting in Avelardo Enrique

The system is pretty simple.

A member of PHPG investigates which neighborhoods have the highest incidence of poverty while also having a high potential for success. “We like to work in neighborhoods where other nonprofits are also helping out. If education and infrastructure are being addressed by other organizations, then there’s less to distract us from business start-ups and job creation,” says Tuck.

PHPG then has meetings to inform the community about the micro-lending program and passes out applications to those who are interested.

All applications are reviewed, and each person that requests a loan is interviewed. The purpose of the interview is to meet the family, learn about their living situation, current income, educational background, and borrowing history. If the potential loan recipient falls under the lending guidelines of the organization, then he or she is added to the new website.

On the new website, donors may view pictures of the potential loan recipients and read their stories. If the donor would like to contribute to a particular entrepreneur, all he or she has to do is select the desired dollar amount and click donate. The system works just like any retail website. The donor just goes to his or her cart and checks out. After confirming the order, the donor is taken to the PayPal website where the donation is processed.

After PHPG receives the full donation amount, the organization disburses the money to the loan recipient. The loan recipient then pays back monthly payments on the loan over the agreed upon period. After the loan is repaid, the funds are used to facilitate new loans to other members of the community.

PHPG believes that they have a system that sets it apart from the organizations that currently exist in the micro-lending world. “Micro-lending started as a way for impoverished individuals to raise themselves out of poverty. Now, a lot of companies look at it as an easy way to make money. Unfortunately, it’s at the expense of the ultra-poor. Our goal at People Helping People Global is to put the philanthropy back into micro-finance,” said Tuck.

Another differentiating factor for PHPG is its size and intimacy. Isabel Gamm, co-Founder and Program Manager of PHPG, tells of her experience, “Community members trust our organization, because we interact with them regularly. In a community where we work, named Avelardo Enrique, we have meetings under the mango tree. During these meetings, we connect on a personal level. We talk about success stories and how to combat problems. We grumble over the heat. We discuss bookkeeping methods, where to buy the best nacatamales, and laugh as the falling mangos whiz by our faces. Our meetings are formal yet fun. That is what separates our organization other micro-lending groups.”

One of the biggest differences that PHPG has with other micro-lending groups is that it doesn’t charge interest. “We charge absolutely no interest on our loans, because we strongly believe that micro-loans requiring borrowers to pay high rates of interest often leave the borrower in more debt than when they began. Our goal is to raise communities out of poverty, not perpetuate the vicious cycle,” said Gamm.

The new website may be found at http://www.peoplehelpingpeopleglobal.org. There readers may learn more about the organization, try out the new donation system, and access the organization’s social media outlets.

About People Helping People Global

People Helping People Global is a project of Building New Hope, a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization. It partners with locals in impoverished regions of the world to develop sustainable economic initiatives. It currently focuses on providing zero percent interest micro-loans to individuals living on less than two dollars per day.

Contact:

Alex Tuck

Executive Director

People Helping People Global

(804) 859-5597

alex@peoplehelpingpeopleglobal.org

www.peoplehelpingpeopleglobal.org

# # #

A Trip out to Caña de Castilla

Being back in Granada for the past couple of weeks has been quite a great experience. Isabel and I have had the opportunity to reconnect with a lot of our old friends, and it feels like we never even left the place. Today, I just wanted to tell you about a couple of those old friends and a trip that we took out to their neighborhood a few days ago.

The little guy with me in the picture above is my younger, Nica brother, Jorge. Jorge and I lived in the same house for about three months during my last stay here in Nicaragua. He, Isabel, and I would make up games, watch Curious George, and fumble through elementary Spanish together (although I have to say that 3-year-old Jorge may have had a better grasp on Spanish grammar than myself, haha). Jorge is the son of Claudia, one of the maids that worked for the hospedaje where we last stayed, and one of the perks for them at the time was that they got to stay in the maid's quarters in the back of the house. The time that we got to spend with them, and Claudia's newborn, Mary Elena, was priceless. So, when we got back to Granada, one of the first few people that we had to visit was obviously Claudia and the crew.

We lucked out on Monday, because we ran into Claudia, and she just happened to be off the next day. So, Tuesday morning, we got the chance to head out to her house in Caña de Castilla, about a 10 minute bus ride to the southwest of Granada. This was our first trip out to her community, and we definitely didn't expect to see what we did.

The trip out to her place took just a little over an hour. During that time, we had the opportunity to describe to her what our organization does, and we got to learn a lot about her experience as a housekeeper at our old place. First of all, she gets paid less than $3 a day for anywhere between 10 to 14 hours of work. Some days she even has to come in at 4:30am to cook breakfast for a big tour group. It's great because these big groups usually leave a pretty hefty tip; however, despite this extra work, she never sees a dime of it. Secondly, she was allowed to stay at the house, but her kids were forever banned from staying there overnight.

Anyway, when we got out to her neighborhood, we were blown away by the beauty of the landscape. There were tons of various fruit trees lining the road back to her house, and the shadow of the active Mombacho volcano was lurking over us (don't worry, it hasn't erupted since 1570). Claudia's house was nestled in the middle of this beauty, and they even had an avocado tree and a plantain tree to add to the ambiance. The only problem is that 14 people are confined to little more than 300 square feet of space.

Claudia and her 9 brothers and sisters share the space, along with her 3 children and her mother. Her father died less than a year ago when a bus struck him while he was standing on the side of the main road at the entrance to their town. Her sister works 2 to 3 days a week, so in all, the household brings in about $21 a week for 14 people (or a little over 20 cents per person per day). Before the father's death, things were not such a problem. However, after his income stopped, things got a lot harder.

Needless to say, this family is in extreme need of help, and they have some great ideas to change their lives around. Claudia's mother plans to start a business selling a new product which is not available in Granada. She plans to borrow enough money to rent a space in the market and purchase enough goods to begin sales very soon. In fact, they plan to fill out the paperwork in the next week and start selling this coming weekend during Semana Santa (Easter Week). We're really excited about their energy, and our level of trust and belief in this family is very high. We can't wait to report back to you the incredible things that they are able to do in the next few months.

Thanks for reading about our adventures! Until next time,

Alex