Home sweet home, or at least that is what Guatemala is starting to feel like for us. We are back for OSU SIFE’s fourth visit to Antigua and San Miguel Escobar. This time, Jenny and I will be staying in Guatemala for three weeks and then moving to Nicaragua for the remaining week. We will be working with our partners in Guatemala (As Green As It Gets and La Vosi) to continue our existing SIFE projects and then developing new partnerships in Nicaragua for future projects.
There is a lot on our plate for Guatemala and we have hit the ground running. Are goals for this trip include: developing and executing marketing campaigns, providing micro loans, helping over 10 young entrepreneurs get their businesses off the ground (This involves everything from shopping which we are pro at to developing Fourier recipes….? That one may require some research.), teaching business skills and developing a business plan for a bakery. Let’s just say that it is going to be a busy summer to say the least.
Our first official day was spent going through logistics and preparing for the week. We had the opportunity to meet with the head honcho from As Green As It Gets, Franklin Voorhes, to discuss to the most effective way to distribute the micro loans.
As Green As It Gets is a non-profit organization focusing on economic development and environmentally sustainable agriculture in Guatemala. They partner with producers from impoverished Guatemalan communities. AGAIG selects families based on their potential to produce marketable products.
For more information on AGAIG, please visit their website at: http://www.asgreenasitgets.org/
Micro lending in an up and coming phenomenon in developing countries. It is the extension of very small loans to individuals in poverty that are designed to spur entrepreneurship. These individuals lack collateral, steady employment and a verifiable credit history and therefore cannot meet the most minimal qualifications to gain access to traditional credit. The reality is that a $150 micro loan can change somebody’s life. Micro lending is considered to have begun with Mohammed Yunus in Bangladesh with the Grameen Bank. Traditionally women are the ideal target market for lending micro credit to because they are the most involved in bettering the lives of their families, especially the lives of their children.
OSU SIFE has taken a unique approach to micro lending by focusing on young adults. In developing countries, children grow up much faster and assume adult roles by their mid teenage years. These teens are at an advantage because they are not yet set in their ways and have a desire increase both their personal and their family’s standard of living. They are more open to innovation and taking risks. Needless to say, these teens are the perfect entrepreneurs.
Eventually our conversations with Franklin turned to ovens (el horno in Spanish). La Vosi is starting a bakery and looking to purchase an oven with their micro loan. Jenny and I are assisting in the great oven search. Franklin’s contribution to our search was dragging us into the kitchen of Pangaea (a local restaurant) and having the cooks explain the bread oven to us. At one point, the cook had Jenny on the ground looking up into the oven’s heating element. While we learned a lot (like how to make baguettes are crispy on the bottom) we came to a group consensus (thanks to an explanation by Franklin the mechanical engineer) that Pangaea’s oven was not efficient and was actually wasting fuel.
I guess the oven search is still on. Jenny and I plan to visit a lot of bakeries over the next week and learn everything that we can. Of course we are going to have to sample the bake goods though. Market research can be really tough at times!
Kim (Exploradora International)
