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"microfinance"
I am honored to take part in the Girl Effect blogging campaign. Tara Sophia Mohr, a leadership coach for women who writes beautiful poetry and an inspiring blog, initiated this campaign with the following call to action:
Last year I organized an collaborative effort of bloggers coming together to write about the importance of investing in girls in the developing world. I’m doing it again this year but BIGGER, aiming to mobilize 1000 bloggers to write about The Girl Effect on October 4th.
The statistics are sobering, but fundamentally, there is more to be hopeful about than to despair about. There is actually so much to be excited about: We now know that when girls are educated just a few additional years in school, they marry later and suffer less spousal violence. They grow into women who can support themselves and their families, often pulling their entire communities out of poverty. There is a growing awareness among decision makers, policy folks, and the philanthropic public that investing in girls is smart investing to end poverty and human rights abuses.
Spreading that world-changing idea is what The Girl Effect Blogging Campaign is all about. I want to invite you to add your voice to the Blogging Campaign on October 4th. It’s not about being an expert. It’s about having a touchpoint of care, connection, interest in this issue – and sharing about that on your blog.
I first watched the Girl Effect video right when it came out in 2008. It made me shiver then, and it still makes me shiver now. Please take two and a half minutes to watch it. If you´re reading this in email or RSS, click the headline.
That summer I met Courtney McColgan and got very involved with Wokai.
I scribbled this storyboard for a Girl Effect-style video to explain Wokai´s mission — to create opportunity for those living in poverty in rural China — to the world in a memorable visual form.
We never ended up making the video, but it sure did get my imagination going!
Now, three years later, I´m here are Start-Up Chile, surrounded by dozens of brilliant entrepreneurs.
The one who most embodies the spirit of the Girl Effect is Jasmine Aarons. Jasmine studied product design at Stanford. Her specialty is human-focused, need-driven design, and she has brought this mindset to her fashion workshop in the suburbs of Temuco, in the south of Chile. Jasmine is teaching Stanford product design methodology to Mapuche seamstresses, to create fair trade fashion for the global market. She is also a nice person with a gorgeous sense of style.
Yeti from the Start-Up Chile team visited Jasmine at her studio and made this awesome video:
Journey of Action, a brother-sister filmmaking team that is traveling through Latin America to document the work of Gen-Y changemakers, also traveled to Jasmine´s studio to profile her:
Read more about Jasmine and her work here at MadeByVoz.com
To me, the Girl Effect is way of approaching the world. The Girl Effect is acknowledging that every girl, every woman can make a difference. All you need is time and inspiration (and a healthy dose of education, health care, family planning and LOVE!) These things should be within reach for every female, in California, China, Chile and beyond!
I invite you to write your own post to support the Girl Effect campaign. Here are some ideas to get you started.
What does the Girl Effect mean to you?
I wrote this piece for MyKRO. Curious to hear what you think.
Today I listened to this Global Prosperity Wonkcast with David Roodman:
A crisis is unfolding in India’s microcredit sector that– beyond its immediate effects on borrowers and lenders– will greatly affect the future of financial services for the poor. I’m joined by David Roodman, senior fellow here at the Center for Global Development and author of the forthcoming book Due Diligence: A Guide to Microfinance (which he has shared step by step on his Open Book Blog). David recently traveled to Andhra Pradesh, the epicenter of the crisis. On the Wonkcast, he leads me through the story of the explosive growth of Indian microcredit– and its sudden fall from grace. [more]
The microfinance crisis in Andhra Pradesh has been compared to the situation in Nicaragua, which I wrote about for MyKRO last year. I haven’t been following the news all that closely, and the podcast gives a fascinating overview. I found the following points particularly thought-provoking:
- Entrepreneurial journalists found out that as many as 30 microfinance borrowers had committed suicide in the state of Andhra Pradesh. This put the dark side of microfinance into the spotlight, and made it a political issue.
- When compared with other personal finance options in India, microfinance is a mass production with low-quality service. Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) are more aggressive about repayment, unlike moneylenders (who charge higher interest rates but are like “parasitic organisms… who don’t want to kill the host.”)
- Investors might be part of the problem, and not just part of the solution. The “bottom of the pyramid” gospel says that microfinance should commercialize, so it can scale and provide more opportunities to more people. The “social investors” promoting this gospel have good intentions, but their drive for scale might have lowered the service standards for these organizations.
That’s a photo of a microfinance borrower in Andhra Pradesh, from this Indian news website.
Andhra Pradesh : Micro Finance becomes ‘Macro Curse’ for people The past few years have seen the entire microfinance sector grow exponentially. As with any other boom, suspicion always exists on whether a bust is just around the corner. This is especially true in the current international setting; with a major financial bust that humbled Alan Greenspan to admit he was “in a state of shocked disbelief”.
In hindsight, it might seem obvious that the years of heady growth directly resulted in the sub-prime crisis and credit crunch. This heightens the sense of unease over the rapid growth of the microfinance industry and one is often seized of whether we are sitting on a bubble waiting to burst.In the case of microfinance, a bubble will be created if a significant number of members are funded beyond their repayment capability.
The atrocities of the Micro finance men on the consumers is increasing day by day. Already two people have committed suicides in the Srikakulam and Warangal districts and some suicide attempts.Since past two days the people have attacked the offices of microfinance and destroyed the infrastructure.
Read the rest here.
Overall, I think that the situation in Andhra Pradesh is devastating and tragic, but should not be interpreted as a blanket statement that microfinance is harmful.
I think that the key issues in microfinance are education and customer service. It is absolutely crucial that borrowers know how to use their loans, and that the MFIs provide real service. I think education and customer service should take precedent over commercial scale.
What do you think?
My dad laughed at me for sending so many Halloween updates, so this post is for him! May you continue to laugh at your Halloween-loving daughter! 
My favorite holiday did not disappoint: concert, karaoke, visit with my favorite drag queen, opera… I really am such a lucky girl!
Here are my favorite Halloween-related links of this week:
Who Says You Can’t Celebrate Halloween in Rural China?
Wokai Fellow Evan Kornbluh posted this gem (with photos including that one ) about the Halloween party he hosted in Yilong County, complete with jack-o-lanterns, masks, candy, and holiday spirit.
However, there can be a flip side to Halloween fun, if school officials say: No Horsing Around
Lately I have been addicted to The Good Men Project, a web magazine that features all kinds of real stories about what men really think about things. This piece about a high school student’s unjust suspension for his awesome Halloween costume, especially caught my eye:
As part of his school’s spirit week, Dan Depaolis, a senior at Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School in the Boston area, was suspended for dressing as a medieval knight and riding a horse to school. If anything, he should be getting an award, not a suspension…
And what would Halloween be without sweet treats? Sweet treats can symbolize larger themes of globalization, outsourcing, and our increasingly connected world.
I stumbled upon this thought-provoking post by Kriszia Vengua, a Filipina freelance writer and entrepreneur. She writes:
At my local supermarket, there’s an aisle that still sells Chips Ahoy and Oreo cookies with the “Made in the USA” stamp on it. And people still buy it, even when there’s a cheaper pack of Oreos and Chips Ahoy that’s made in Thailand a couple of aisles down.
“Can they honestly do what I do?” a US based transcriptionist wrote on a job board once “How can someone from halfway around the world do what I can I do for that price? How can they be better?”
The answer is simple: they receive the exact same training, get the same amount of experience, in a country where labor prices are low, and English happens to be an official language.
There’s no accent needed in typing words. When that transcription comes in, you can hardly ever tell that it was typed by someone thousands of miles away. It’s essentially the same Oreos, the same Chips Ahoy.
There’s no emotion attached to the process: an order is placed, and someone fills it. Someone craves a cookie, they buy one.
The emotion lies more on the buyer: a friend of mine swears that the imported cookies tastes better. I admit, there’s a subtle difference, but it’s all a matter of preference. For someone who just wants something sweet, the difference is negligible.
I highly recommend reading her whole post. I once interviewed with a consulting firm in Washington D.C. that helps big companies enter emerging markets. As part of my final interview, I had to give a presentation on investing in the Filipino food processing industry. Her anecdote about the Oreos would have fit right in!
And, last but not least, the best way to get rid of a post-Halloween hangover is to begin celebrating the next holiday. Colin Nissan puts a name on this holiday, in McSweeneys:
IT’S DECORATIVE
GOURD SEASON, MOTHERFUCKERS.I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to get my hands on some fucking gourds and arrange them in a horn-shaped basket on my dining room table…
Thanks Cooper for that profanity-strewn link! Have a great day
This morning, when I clicked through from this post about Krystal Ball and Generation Y in politics, to this one that Krystal Ball herself wrote for the Huffington Post, I found a Wokai ad front and center! Those that know me know that I used to lead Wokai‘s marketing efforts, and I am so impressed to see this in such a prominent, mainstream location, with such a concrete and easy-to-understand message. Congratulations to everyone involved.
This adorable little girl lives at the ger camp in the Semi-Gobi Desert, the place where we rode camels. I chose her photo to illustrate this post, because I think her stylish coat and practical boots exemplify the type of consumerism that improves the lives of everyday Mongolians.
While I was in Mongolia, the insightful and prolific Akhila Kolisetty featured this quote from Jacqueline Novogratz, founder of the Acumen Fund:
You told me that you don’t like the phrase ‘Doing well by doing good.’ Yet, that’s what comes to mind for many when they think about social investing. What does it mean to you?
It implies that there are easy solutions. That the perfect way to change the world and end poverty is if we all can make a lot of money doing it. But when you look at poverty and what it takes to break through entrenched systems, high levels of fatalism, unbelievable levels of corruption, incredibly bad distribution, no infrastructure, you are not going to make a lot of money and serve the poor in a way that they can afford. You may make a lot of money and serve the poor in usurious ways that keep them poor forever, like many of the mafia services do, but if you want to provide systems that are fair and affordable, and that they can trust into the long term, building them takes a long time. Over time as you really hit scale, you will make money, but we’ve been in some of our deals for six or seven years and we feel we’re just starting.
I like Akhila’s response, which includes these words:
At the end of the day, “doing good and making money” is all a myth that we have deceived ourselves into believing. And perhaps it’s a marketing tactic of social businesses. But I’m sorry, but you can’t do both. Sure, you can ensure your social business is sustainable, but you, yourself are not going to be rich. In fact, your lifestyle and salary will probably be comparable to the lifestyle of non-profit employees. There is no difference between the two. Joining a social business is not a way to get rich or make money – it’s ultimately simply another way to empower the poor and work towards social justice. And I hope we can change our language to reflect this truth.
Click here to read the rest, and while you’re at it check out the rest of her excellent blog, Justice for All! I wrote her an email in response, which included these words:
I am writing this from Ulaan Bataar, Mongolia. Good businesses in this country include cell phones, satellite TV, car repair products, warm coats, solar panels, tourism, stuff for kids. All of this stuff makes life better for ordinary people, and makes money for the companies who sell it (though probably not a lot given all the things that Novogratz mentioned.)
The little girl’s coat and boots are probably imported from China, and purchased with cash brought in by hosting foreign visitors. The family has lots of livestock, so it probably produces most of its own food. But in this modern world, with solar-powered TV and foreign friends, a family cannot live on salty milk tea alone!
I’m curious to hear what you think
I'm Leslie and I connect entrepreneurs in Chile, China, California, and beyond — especially through translation, training, and trade. More about me.
