Friday, July 22, 2011

There is no Yellow Brick Road



I’m not sure what I thought micro-finance would be like. Maybe after a small loan a woman wakes up the next day and presto!, finds a thriving business that enables her to build a brand new house and send her kids to good schools. I suspect most of the criticism of micro-credit comes from notions like this.

The truth is there is no yellow brick road out of poverty. Instead we’ve watched as Fonkoze provides companion services with their financial ones. Not because it’s a nice thing to do, but because they know that each client is a real human being with many intertwined challenges.

We shot our group of Solid Women at education classes (a few of them can’t read, but decided to skip the literacy module in favor of the business module). There was a vitamin distribution, where children got essential vitamins. And even micro-insurance that helped women deal with the inevitable frailty of their businesses.

And that’s the beauty of Fonkoze… they’ve created a network where any services that might benefit clients can be implemented and integrated with micro-finance. Most importantly I think the women feel that Fonkoze isn’t just a piggy bank, I think they take their commitment to the program pretty seriously. One women we met was in her 60’s and just starting literacy classes. When we asked why she smiled and said simply “I didn’t want to die without knowing how to read.”

This is slow work… often without fireworks. But these women are moving.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Poverty is Misery


What an uplifiting title for this post.... I bet you're excited to read.

During our interviews (conducted in kreyol) the Solid Women use the word misery and the word poverty interchangeably. When you see the life of a Haitian peasant up close, the opportunities for misery peak out of every nook and cranny.


Lozelle told us that when the weather is bad, she “tells her children to patient.” When that doesn’t work, they eat leaves from a nearby tree. Mariette (the vivacious group leader) is a mover and shaker. But she couldn’t build her business with the loans from loan sharks that charged up to 20% interest. Perhaps most heartbreaking was Seden’s story. She told us, “I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything.” In the end, misery can manifest itself in this state of paralysis. We’ve seen it often here in Haiti…. people just sitting on the side of a busy street. Waiting.


Fonkoze did not erase misery from these women’s lives. On the contrary each day brings a new struggle. But for each of them it seems the first time in their lives they’ve been provided with an active opportunity to change their circumstances. In fact it was the other four women who came to Seden and said “You can’t just sit around all day. Come on… get up, we’re going to join Fonkoze together.” And they did.

I keep coming back to the above picture of Seden. As we take photos/videos we're hoping to balance the beauty evident in the country, work and faces of these women, with the reality that misery exist in abundance here. There is something subtle about her look that works in this direction...there is a nuance I can't put into words.