Guatemala Part 2

Friday morning we all loaded in the van and headed to a poorer area of town located next to the garbage dump. Our first order of business was to visit one of the schools in this area. The reason why we were visiting this particular school is because they have started a program called "Micro-Finance".

In a nut shell Micro-Finance is a loan program based upon peer pressure. The loans are given out to women to help them start their own businesses. The program is very detailed so I will try to give you an overview of the way it works.

1. The school groups together about 10 women that need loans to start their own businesses. The women figure out how much money they each need to start their business.

2. Once the amount of money for each individual person has been agreed upon by the entire group, they all sign a contract saying they will pay a certain amount every 2 weeks and on that contract they have to list something as collateral (ex. TV).

3. The school will give the money to the women to start their small businesses.

The interesting part of this program is the peer pressure part. If someone misses a payment they have 9 other women knocking on their door to lovingly find out the reason why payment is late. Each group of women becomes its own caring community. The success rate for this program is amazing. In the past few years that this program has been established only 2 people have faltered on their loan. It seems to make everyone be accountable for what they have been given.

The School

Micro-Finance Meeting

After our visit was finished at the school we took about a 30 minute walk through the slums. It is a small area of Guatemala City that holds approximately 250,000 people. The reason why this area holds so many people is that it is located around the dump so the people can scavenge for food, clothing, items to sell, items to recycle, and items to build their lean-to's/shacks. The walk was truly eye opening. We weren't able to get any pictures of this area for two different reasons. The primary reason is that we didn't want the people to think we were making a spectacle out of their lives, the second reason was that we didn't want our camera to get stolen. You hear all the time about the conditions in certain areas around the world, but it is completely different when you walk through it.

Once we were finished in the slum area we all headed to Antigua. Antigua is an old coastal city about 30 minutes from Guatemala City where we were able to eat lunch and do a little bit of shopping. I will post more about Antigua later.

After spending a few hours in Antigua it was time to head to the church to start our Finance Seminar. The plan for the Friday night seminar was to have a general opening session then break out into 3 classes: Personal Finance, Computers, & Business/Marketing. Once everyone picked which class they wanted to be in we had a 45 minute session, a short snack break, and then the second 45 minute session began.

Registration

Welcoming Session

Marketing Class

Computer Class

Personal Finance Class

All in all the first day was a success. There were lots of questions and a lot of interest was shown in the areas that were being taught. Before we left for the evening each class announced that we would be available the next morning to do one-on-one session with individuals that had questions pertaining to their particular class.

Once we left the church we grabbed a quick bite to eat and headed back to Casa Emaus to get some sleep.