Hola chicos y chicas. Throughout the semester, my four colleagues and myself have been taking a class with Professor Nemecek that discusses the history, economy, and current events of Guatemala. From time to time, guest speakers are brought in to share. This week, we had a guy named Matt Creelman come and speak to us about the country and some of the things he's been a part of while living in Guatemala over the past several years. Although Matt first came to Latin America as a journalist, he has since done a lot of work in partnering with communities to help develop self-sustaining business projects.
Now, because Guatemala has an enormous amount of people living in poverty, there have been a number of non-profit organizations, church groups, and other efforts that have come to the country to provide assistance. Because of Matt's experiences, he had some wonderful insight on efforts made by these groups to "serve" the people of Guatemala. To put it bluntly, Matt was extremely pessimistic about organizations that provide help. So many people come to impoverished nations and only focus on providing for needs temporarily, rather than helping people develop long-term strategies to provide for themselves. If you only teach people how to receive, you probably haven't really made much of a long-term difference. Real change, as I'm beginning to believe, comes from partnering with communities to establish methods with which to generate long-term, regular revenue.
Lest you think I'm now against mission trips to third-world countries, hear me out. It's a wonderful thing to go on a missions trip and serve people. It really is. And these kinds of things can make a big impact on peoples' lives. Also, there are a ton of non-government organizations with great intentions of making the world a better place. These are good things and good people. I have no doubt that the hearts of the people are in the right place (in a lot of cases); they really want to love people by serving them. In particular, mission trips can help develop a more healthy global perspective, and also help people contextualize the difficulties they face. Again, this is a wonderful opportunity and I encourage people to participate in missions trips and other service-oriented activities.
However, good intentions are not sufficient for long-term solutions to many of the problems in the world.
What I very much appreciated about hearing from Matt was how passionate he was to come alongside people and not only provide for their needs, but help come up with ways for people to provide for themselves. One of the ways in which this is possible is through what is known as micro-financing. Micro-financing agencies offer loans to small business owners and entrepreneurs who would likely be unable to get a loan from a bank. (Many of the banks have all sorts of requirements that are unrealistic for many, and often charge excessive interest rates)
With micro-financing organizations, after the lender reviews and approves the business proposal, the loan is given to the person with little or no interest. This allows for people to start and grow businesses, rather than continue in underpaid, inconsistent jobs.
I've been learning a lot about the concept of micro-lending over the last several weeks and am convinced it's one of perhaps many ways in which peoples' lives can be improved. A girl from my school is currently doing an internship at Namaste Direct, a non-profit organization providing micro-loans to women in Guatemala (click here for a link to their Facebook page).
Kiva is a larger organization that has sort of owned the idea of micro-financing. On their website, they allow users to loan money (in amounts as low as $25) to people around the world who need loans to help/start businesses. I really encourage you to check out their website (click here) and learn how it works. You can scroll through and read business proposals that people have written, and then decide if you'd like to loan that individual/business money. After putting money out for the loan, you are given updates on the business and how it's doing. Also interesting to note is that Kiva loans have a 98% repayment rate, meaning that almost everyone who loans money eventually gets repaid.
Kiva does a good job at making sure the micro-financing agencies they work with are legit and not charging excessive amounts, but be aware there are still some illegitimate agencies out there.
If you're still reading at this point, forgive me if I sound bitter towards missions trips, NGO's, and other charitable causes. I'm really not. I simply want to suggest that there may be ways through which we can better serve others and improve the world around us.
"Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth."
1 John 3:18
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