Happy New Year! ¡Feliz Año Nuevo!

Onward to a new year!

Hello all! It has been a while since the last post, hasn’t it? While we have all been busy with the holiday season, rest assured that our work never takes a holiday. Sure, over the past few months our beneficiaries have been enjoying a very Feliz Navidad y Año Nuevo. But once the party is over, it’s right back to business. They know their business. We know they know their business. It’s why we want to work with them, naturally.

So, what has been going on with PHPG over the past couple months? Well, let me tell you! Eric Pires, our dear Regional Coordinator in Matagalpa since July 2013, has since moved on to other things. As has Trent Shelton, who was the Regional Coordinator in Granada, who also began in July 2013. While we will stay in touch with both of them, and they are sorely missed, we of course wish them the absolute best of luck in all of their future endeavours.

Trent Shelton and Eric Pires

The individual we have volunteering in Nicaragua who has taken over their responsibilities is Dr. Steve Marks, who is spending his sabbatical for the next few months working with PHPG. We are honoured and humbled to have the opportunity to work with him, without doubt! Not only is he a professor at the Boston University School of Law, as well as the Academic Director of the same institution, as well as having several esteemed publications to his name, but he is also an all-around pleasant guy to be around. We are truly fortunate to be able to have him working with us, and more importantly, our beneficiaries have been thriving, and will continue to thrive, under his more-than-capable guidance.

Dr. Steve Marks

Dr. Marks and Juan Carlos distributed a whole new set of loans in the El Pantanal neighbourhood of Granada in December, and next month, we should be seeing the results of our big project in Muy Muy. And, of course, there are the hundreds of beneficiaries we continue to work with, ranging from agricultural workers in the countryside to small shop operators in the heart of the city.

We apologize for our relative silence the past couple of months. We really ought to keep you all up to date with what we’re doing. But our silence here is belied by the continuing positive outcomes we see in the people we work with, in the communities on the ground in Nicaragua who are using the resources that the supporters of PHPG – people like yourself – have made possible.

We thank you. They thank you. We’ll keep you updated on what’s happening. Let’s make this a great year in the fight against extreme poverty.

Meet Melo, our new Matagalpa Loan Officer

I have the pleasure of introducing Maria De Los Angeles Lopez Lopez or "Melo" as our Matagalpa region's first Loan Collections Officer. With the expansion of our operations in the north of the country we have reached the capacity to require a loan officer. With our four new loan groups and many more in waiting PHPG has decided to hire local staff to assist our Program Coordinators with collections and the identification of new opportunities.

We set off by interviewing a series of well-qualified candidates for the position. But what it came down to was who had the soft skills that we felt best suited the position. Melo stood out to PHPG as one of the most proactive group leaders we've seen. She galvanized and organized her group in Susuma in ways that weren't done with other groups. This prompted Isabel to immediately offer her an interview for the position. Having spent a good amount of time observing Melo with her group and in her community we felt that she has strong interpersonal skills and wonderful ideas for how to improve our work in Matagalpa. A young mother herself, Melo is well attuned to the lives our of clients and understands their context intimately.

We are very happy to welcome Melo to our small family and hope to see great things from her soon!

An Update from Muy Muy

This post is written by Ross Harding, PHPG’s communications volunteer currently staying in the Matagalpa region.

Today, I figure it’s a good time to catch up with our big project in Muy Muy that Eric told us about a couple of weeks ago. It also has a lot to do with PHPG’s work in Microfinance Plus programming that Trent talked about a few days ago, where we’re providing both an interest-free loan along with some training and support in order to make the loan really do the most work in helping get results.

As Eric described in the first Muy Muy post, the project revolves around getting the farmers of Muy Muy black bean seeds, which we expect will give a three-fold return at current prices once we get to harvest time. Because we all know that PHPG operates on a zero-interest model, this means the community will be able to keep a really nice chunk of change that, ideally, can be used to expand their profits even further during the next growing cycle – or whatever else they think is best for their money. They earned it, we just helped.

Concerning the Microfinance Plus element, back in September Eric and I attended a meeting with the community where we discussed what our partner organization, Multipro, is offering for the workshops, and what the community themselves were most interested in.

Eric at the September meeting where the community chose what workshop topics they were interested in.

This month, the first workshop took place. Eric and I were there, and had the pleasure of participating along with them. The subject: conflict resolution.

That’s David, who was the facilitator for this workshop. It’s hard to capture this with mere pictures and words, but he’s the kind of guy whose enthusiasm is really contagious. If I were the type of person to be prone to conflict, David’s energetic and engaging presentation would have surely changed my tune.

We began with some ice-breakers to get us all a little more comfortable with one another.

Laughs were had by all, but more importantly, a comfortable and open atmosphere was established. David delivered some of his presentation via PowerPoint and lecturing, and encouraging discussion from the participants whenever possible:

The participants were divided up into groups for more in-depth brainstorming activities:

And the ultimate conflict to resolve, without losing grip on one another:

But in the end, the most assuring sign from the workshop was simply looking at the participants during the presentation and seeing them actually interested, not yawning, chatting amongst themselves, or playing with their phones.

In summary, the workshop element of PHPG’s Microfinance Plus project in Muy Muy has gotten off to a very nice start, and I look forward to talking more about it in the future.

Meet the Nicaraguan Staff

This post is written by Trent Shelton, PHPG's Program Coordinator for the Granada region.

PHPG is run by both Nicaraguan employees and by volunteers. The Nicaraguans are the heart and soul of the operations of the organization. From the loan collections in El Pantanal every Monday and Friday, to conducting potential loan client interviews, to doing quality of life evaluations, the team does it all. The team includes Juan Carlos, Juan Carlos Jr. (Juan Carlos's son), and Tatiana. Both Juan Carlos and Tatiana live in El Pantanal and are both well-known in the community. This is easy to see as we walk the loan collections route; most of the locals stop to say hi to either Juan Carlos or Tatiana. Having this local team from El Pantanal has great benefits for the organization.

The employees also have many benefits with the job. Not only are they giving back to their own community, but they have the chance to learn about micro-lending, business practices, accounting, and what it takes to be an entrepreneur. They get to see, up-close and personal, what is working and what is not working with many local businesses in their community. They also gain valuable work experience in a economic development organization.

Without further ado, here is our Nicaraguan team:

Juan Carlos Ruiz

Job Title: Head Loan Officer (full-time)

Lives in: El Pantanal, Granada, Nicaragua

Outside of PHPG: Runs a business out of his house in El Pantanal as a Big Cola distributor, selling gas tanks, and selling Movistar cell phone credit. 

Interesting Fact: Juan Carlos was drafted into the Nicaraguan national army during revolutionary war in 1983 at the young age of 17 years old, where he was based in the northern mountains near the border of Honduras. Juan Carlos has lived in El Pantanal for over 15 years but also used to work as a fisherman in Lake Nicaragua. 

Tatiana Arias Mondoy

Job Title: Loan Officer (part-time)

Lives in: El Pantanal, Granada, Nicaragua

Outside of PHPG: Works for La Esperanza Granada, a non-profit providing teachers and volunteers to local schools. Tatiana splits her time between teaching in schools and working in the Esperanza office. Tatiana is also studying Business Administration at the Hispanoamericana University (UHISPAM), attending classes on Saturdays. As if that wasn't enough, she also helps run her family's pulperia, a corner store selling everything from bread to laundry detergent.

Interesting Fact: Tatiana's mother, Ana Mercedes, is one of PHPG's loan clients and a perfect example of the type of client PHPG looks for. She has already completed two loans, using the money to invest in her pulperia. The loans have allowed her to buy inventory in bulk, giving her a cheaper purchase price which gives her a higher profit margin. She has also been able to purchase other types of products in her store which draws more customers. The cash flow from the loans have been critical in helping her grow her business. Ana Mercedes has used her family's increased earnings to make improvements on their house, including raising their roof 3 feet with bricks to provide better ventilation against the heat.

 Juan Carlos Ruiz Jr.

Job Title: Loan Officer (part-time)

Lives in: Masaya, Nicaragua

Outside of PHPG: Studies at Colegio Cristiano Restauracion (Christian Restoration High School) with a focus on pharmacy. 

Interesting Fact: Juan Carlos is already showing his entrepreneurial spirit, as he breeds and sells rabbits as pets. He currently has 8 rabbits used for breeding. He sells the baby rabbits to friends and family for $4 each. Juan Carlos makes the trip from Masaya to Granada to work for PHPG.

San Juanillo

This post is written by PHPG's Matagalpa region volunteer, Ross Harding.

San Juanillo is a small rural community a couple of hours away from Matagalpa by bus.

Although the journey can feel rather long, the natural beauty of Nicaragua at least makes for a pleasant view from the bus window.

San Juanillo is one of PHPG’s longer partnerships in the Matagalpa region. Our project here is part of our partnership with EOS International, which we also talked a bit about in an earlier post.

In the communities where we have partnered with EOS, generally our loans take the form of sustainable technologies such as fuel-efficient ovens or drip-irrigation systems. We also give a bit of capital, around $55, to help jump-start their business activities. With the help of PHPG and EOS, the communities we work with are able to secure livelihoods that they would have a hard time achieving otherwise.

So, how are things coming along? Regional Coordinator Eric and yours truly recently visited the community for one of our monthly collection dates.

Arriving at the local group leader’s farm, I couldn’t help but gawk at much of the picturesque beauty. Yet it is important not to romanticize things too greatly; our mandate is working with people who make on average less than $2 per day, which means despite the natural splendour of the land there is still real hardship. 

Thankfully, so far our efforts have contributed to lessening that hardship for the group we’ve been working with. Although there have been months here and there when one of the members might not be able to make the repayment (which is to be expected given the uncertainties of agricultural work), it’s certainly not a pattern. The San Juanillo group is leveraging the opportunity we at PHPG and EOS have been able to provide, and are well underway to paying it off completely. 

The group leader was happy to show us around her farm. Here’s what a plot of onions looked like in September:

And here they are in October:

So, in short, things are looking pretty healthy over in San Juanillo! We’ll definitely give another update on how things are going in this neck of the woods next month. It may be a bit of a trek to get to San Juanillo, but the gracious people, beautiful landscapes, and meaningful opportunities are certainly all worth it.