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Last week I read through the websites of BRAC and Grameen to figure out how Microfinance works and if they have any Microfinance based in Honduras. Through Grameens website I found a report about Microfinance in Central America. I further researched the organizations I found on the report) and the procedures of funding used by these organizations and then compiled them as an excel sheet list. BRAC as it turns out is not involved in Honduras, Grameen only provides technical support to Adelante Foundation (http://www.adelantefoundation.org/)All
the Microfinance orgnanizations in Honduras seem to follow the grameen model for lending pursposes, in this model an organization assigns a number of officers to a community to familirize with the situations on ground and gather loan applications. Once the loan applications are reviewed they decide on potential borrowers (usually the limit is 5 people) and form a group of with all them as members. Then they give money to 2 members of the group (the loan could range from anything between $50 to $5000) and monitor repayments for a two year period. If the two borrowers do return the money on time they extend the loans to everybody else in the group, this dynamics creates a peer pressure among the borrowers to make payments on time.
During the course of the semester I helped Joe with the sample budget for the IAG grant and connected him with Chris the plant operator. I also connected couple of the team members with Nadine Porter for printing the posters.
In the second half of the semester:
- I want to finish registering Aguaclara as a student group and co-ordinate with Brandon and other PR group members to publisize the group
- Work with Joe to submit the IAG grant and application for funding through Cornell Student activity fee
- Research Microfinance in Honduras further. Co-ordinate with Tamar to contact the organizations based in Honduras to gather more information about the lending procedures and start a dialogue with the community about possibility of forming a water boards in different villages to borrow money for building plants
- Co-ordinate with Robin Remick, the director of International Programs at ILR to cross list Aguaclara as a course in ILR and possibly get funding to cover some of the costs of teams Honduras trip in January