Taking Care of Business

Yesterday afternoon I experienced a Bolivian sporting phenomenon. After helping with some English classes at a language school a couple of evenings after work this week, I was invited to partake in their Saturday afternoon tradition- a rousing game of wally. At first I thought they were just mispronouncing 'volley', as in volleyball, but no... it looks like volleyball, it sounds like volleyball, but it most certainly is not volleyball. ‘Wally’ is played on a squash court with a volleyball net, using the walls (I guess that’s where the name comes from) and all body parts. It’s madness. The ball was frantically bouncing off the walls and people’s heads and feet at my face. Eventually I managed to warm up to the whole thing, but I’m still not sold on it. I really just wanted to play volleyball and have some familiarity in my life, but I guess that’s a silly thing to ask for when you agree to play a game you’ve never heard of with a group of Bolivians you’ve just met. I guess it was a positive experience overall, but I still want to know if anyone else on the planet has ever heard of or played this game.
Regardless, the language school was a random and interesting little connection that I made this week. Perhaps I will even find some friends for myself there. I’m still working on that- you know, making friends and stuff…

Aside from being super lame on the ‘wallyball’ court, highlights of this week include the fact that it was my first week of work at FONCRESOL. In honor of that fact I am going to take some time to explain what FONCRESOL does and what I will be doing here for the next few months.

FONCRESOL works with poor, marginalized communities to empower individuals within their local economies through the provision of microfinance services. FONRESOL practices a community-banking model where individuals come together to form an economic solidarity group in order to be granted individual loans. The solidarity group serves as a guarantee mechanism for its members as they have no official financial credit or collateral. Most groups are composed almost entirely of women, not because FONCRESOL has a discriminatory policy, but because they target women due to their proven higher payback rate and the crucial role that women play at home and in the community. Once a group has been approved by FONCRESOL (ie: they all have identification cards and no one is in debt to another institution) they apply for a loan as a group and it is divided among the members. Then the members choose a day each month that they will meet and pay back at least the interest (approx. 2.5%) on their loan. The loans are paid back over 6 month cycles, and after a group has successfully paid back their loan at the end of a cycle they can apply for a larger loan. Most loans begin at around $800 bolivanos ($120CAD) and FONCRESOL does not dictate what the money has to be used for.
Each communal bank has an internal account that is added to by its members who pay fines for things like arriving late to meetings or missing meetings. Some groups also organize community events and contribute any generated funds to the internal account. At the end of the cycle the members can divide the internal account amongst them or carry it on to the next cycle. The internal account can also be used for emergency situations and the group can vote on whether or not they want to lend money to a member in need. This week I had the opportunity to visit a group that had just successfully finished their first loan cycle and was getting ready to apply for their second. There were also new members at the meeting who had heard about the group's success during the first cycle and wanted to join. I spoke to two girls my age there who were taking courses at university and who had small businesses on the side selling perfumes, lotions and beauty supplies.

Although the provision of micro-credit is the basis of FONCRESOL’s work, they are also dedicated to providing social development services to their clients because the organization believes that social development is just as important as economic growth. Due to Bolivia's huge informal economy it has become a competitive place for microfinance institutions and so many are now trying to go above and beyond while others are just happy to aimlessly hand out loans. You can hand out money forever, but if overarching social structures and behaviors don’t change, the added cash won’t have any long-term effects. This is where I come in. I studied economics (my 22 yr old permanently furrowed brow is proof), but I am by no means an economist. What I’m going to do with FONCRESOL is help them build upon their capacity building programs. To date they have held workshops for their clients in areas like human rights, women’s rights and political participation, but they are looking to come up with a methodology that will make the delivery of these workshops more feasible and effective. During my time with FONCRESOL I will be evaluating the current structure of their banking programs to see where I can weasel in some more of this good stuff without burdening the already overworked staff too much. Above you will find photos of some of my co-workers- Berta and Amparo. There are two gentlemen that we work with as well, but I didn’t get a chance to snap their photo on Friday. They’ll show up later. Actually, probably next week because this week I’m going to Cochabamba (on my first business trip EVER!) where FONCRESOL is having their annual national conference. I’m a high-powered business executive.

This afternoon I visited a town about 1 ½ hr outside of Sucre called Tarabuco. They have a well-known Sunday market with lots of artesian crafts and weavings. It was a cold damp day, but it was nice to get out of the city and see some of the surrounding countryside. To top it off, just as my fellow Canadian co-worker Karen and I were about to leave the market a parade materialized and I managed to catch some footage of it. Enjoy the crazy monkey/lion man.
The pictures in this post are from Tarabuco, but similar small market vendors can be found in Sucre and they are an example of the type of clients FONCRESOL works with. Please note the woman selling coca leaves in bulk.