Guatemala Dream
by Terri N Gelberg
In April 2010, 11 of us, 10 members of WIL of Greater Philadelphia and one husband, went to Guatemala to get a closer look and a better understanding, of our Village Bank work, and to "open" the Bobbie Gohn bank.
Through Friendship Bridge (Puenta de Amistad) the TIAW NGO in Guatemala, which operates micro finance trust circles in that country, we had an amazing experience.
We learned a little about what "basic" means. Only after this visit, could we try to begin to understand the challenges faced by an illiterate indigenous woman, with 6-12 children, cooking over a smoky wood fire, fueled by the wood she collected herself and hauled on her back up steep volcanic hills, taught that she is to make no decision, (only her husband could do so), even about her own life in a life and death health care situation relating to herself or to her children. She must wait, regardless of the urgency of the problem, until her husband returns from the fields, before the necessary action can be taken.
Our visit centered on the Lake Atitlan area, home of Guatemala's poorest of the poor. The area is stunning, "tranquilo". The Lake is surrounded by volcanoes, hills, indigenous families who wear their brilliantly colored traditional clothing. They wash the family's clothes by hand on the rocks of the lake shore, fish in wooden boats that are paddled in a standing position with long oars, — the scenery is breathtaking.
We met several individual borrowers, learned a little about their businesses, attended a repayment meeting and, the most powerful for me, the disbursement meeting of the funds we donated in memory of Bobbie Gohn.
We met the members of the Guatemala based executive team of Friendship Bridge, and we asked a million questions.
Friendship Bridge uses a trust bank format. Ten to twelve women in a village or town, select each other, approve each others' loans, and even accept personal responsibility to repay not only the amount they borrow individually, but accept the responsibility to repay, if one of them should default, the principal and interest of each and every other woman in their trust bank group. We met one woman who talked about an earlier loan from Friendship Bridge for which she alone ended up repaying the borrowed amount plus interest for every member of her group. (Her business has grown so substantially that she now borrows individually. She is a real success story!)
The groups we met borrowed 1000-5000Q (about $120 US - $600 US). They are weavers, beaders, they raise chickens, collect and sell wood, make candy and bake tortillas. Hopefully, they make enough money to send their children to school, develop self-esteem, learn to save a small amount of money, and, if their dreams come true, write their own name.
Article published in the TIAW eConnections September-October 2010 newsletter. To learn more about TIAW (The International Alliance for Women) visit their Web site.
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