posted by Lindsey Engh | filed under Microfinance |
Right this very second, Occupy Wall Street protesters are braving the first snow in New York because of a belief that banks have become too big for the people's good. While it's true that big banks across the major world markets have severely and negatively altered the global economy because of risky practices, there is such a thing as too little bank intervention. Most people in the US are tired of the way that big banks manifest themselves into our everyday lives, but for those that have no other option, banks provide a necessary utility that, in their absence, people feel helpless and tied - the same as those feel in Zuccotti Park. Vinolia's story below illustrates the need for banking and financial options in order for people living without to be granted the same opportunity for success and improvement as those living with a multitude of financial options.
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posted by Lindsey Engh | filed under Microfinance |
**This post originally appeared on the Lumana blog.
Every Sunday, Lumana staff go to Dzita to do repayment meetings. Because of the destroyed road, it’s a huge chunk out of the client’s busy work day to hike down to the Lumana office in Atorkor - about an hour's journey. Since Lumana is all about customer service, the staff go directly to them. Long drive aside, it’s an enjoyable way to spend the day; the staff camp out in the local school right on the beach, read books or sip Orange Fantas while they wait for clients to stop in. For a second, our microfinance lives seemed almost like a Corona commercial… until Aloryida dropped by.
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posted by Lindsey Engh | filed under Microfinance |
**This series of blog posts comes from the Lumana blog, where I sometimes write for kicks.
This past Sunday, Muhammad Yunus came to Seattle to give a lecture on his new book, Building Social Business. I have heard Yunus speak before, but this time, instead of microfinance, he was touring the US to promote his new book. I'm sure he signed a lot of copies!
I met Dr. Yunus as he mingled at the reception beforehand, and we chatted a little about his book and his thoughts on B Corporations as social businesses (his thought: B Corporations have a long way to go before becoming social businesses in his sense of the term). Hmm... interesting.
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posted by Lindsey Engh | filed under Microfinance |
**This series of blog posts comes from the Lumana blog, where I sometimes write for kicks.
Development trends are always changing. Industry experts are constantly recognizing new roadblocks and highlighting different stats so let’s chat about the new bright and shiny toolkit: the low-hanging global development fruit – transparency!
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posted by Lindsey Engh | filed under Microfinance |
**This series of blog posts comes from the Lumana blog, where I sometimes write for kicks.
At Lumana, we have offered savings accounts as an integral part of our lending program since we started our pilot project in 2008. Not only do we offer savings, we also teach the importance of developing savings habits in our 10-day business education course, and as our client receives their first loan, they also agree to make compulsory savings deposits while in repayment. Our clients first use their loan to overcome short-term problems, such as business expenditures and daily household needs, but then over time, are able to use their loan for longer-term effects, such as paying for education, more health services, and expanding their business. All in all, savings contributes to a more long-term solution in their community.
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posted by Lindsey Engh | filed under Microfinance |
**This series of blog posts comes from the Lumana blog, where I sometimes write for kicks.
Microfinance has a lot of different outcomes. First of all, there are the 'escape from poverty, empower yourself, send all your children to school, invest in your business, create jobs, access quality healthcare' outcomes. These are the huge, best-case outcomes, and also what microfinance advocates usually preach. Then there come the smaller outcomes, such as ONE rural villager sending their child to school, or ONE person being able to expand their business based on a micro-loan. The best way to talk about these outcomes is by story-telling, or using qualitative methods such as interviews and group meetings to find out how microfinance has made an impact in the lives of individual clients. This is a very important part of outcome analysis in microfinance.
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posted by Lindsey Engh | filed under Microfinance |
**This series of blog posts comes from the Lumana blog, where I sometimes write for kicks.
Picture this scenario:
A conference entitled 'Monitoring, Evaluation, and Social Impact' is in full swing in a lovely hotel room in downtown New York. A plenary speaker is addressing a room full of donors, investors, practitioners, communication specialists about global development and the need for transparency and results.
Then, the inevitable question comes up: “What results?… do we have any to communicate?”
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posted by Lindsey Engh | filed under Microfinance |
** This series of blog posts comes from the Lumana blog, where I sometimes write for kicks.
Part of our mission statement says that we use microfinance as a tool for empowering people to lift themselves out of poverty. But of course, microfinance can be wielded as a poverty alleviation tool just about anywhere there is a need - and there is a lot of need around the world. Eventually, we'd like to scale our model to other parts of Africa, but why did we start our first pilot project in a small village in Ghana in the first place? You can read about how our founder, Sammie Rayner, developed important relationships with the chief of Atorkor when she first traveled to Ghana, or the socio-economic reasons for starting a microfinance lending program in Ghana here, on our website, but let me tell you some other reasons about why we first started Lumana in Ghana.
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