Microfinance In Honduras
I am currently working as the Program Director for La Ceiba Microfinance.
La Ceiba is a student-run client-centered microfinance institution that operates in El Progreso, Honduras. It provides financial and educational tools to clients in order to help them fight poverty at home and in the community. What sets the organization apart is the focus of putting the client before the organization itself. It recognizes the clients as full individuals that know their lives better than any institution. La Ceiba works to create and foster relations that take into account each person’s needs and, if necessary, sacrificing the needs of the organization itself to better the client’s situation. This means low interest rates on individual loans, and a myriad of strategies to keep the pressure off. It’s vision is a world in which the well being and agency of the client once again claims center stage in the microfinance community.
There also exists a powerful educational portion to this particular MFI, as it is primarily student-run. It is crucial to La Ceiba that the group is engendered with a moral clarity on the paramount importance of the client. Students are then left to develop projects and improvements to be implemented on the current system. As things grow and develop, La Ceiba works to alleviate poverty in an ethical manner by providing a drawing board for young minds. The contribution to the world of Microfinance via its means and events like Two Dollar A Day Challenge cannot be understated.
Please visit: http://www.laceibamfi.org
Two Dollar Challenge on Campus
The Two Dollar A Day challenge itself is primarily an educational exercise and a fundraising tool. Participants experience the constraints faced by nearly half the world’s population for five consecutive days. Sleeping outside in makeshift shelters, boiling all water before consumption, and paying for everything with two dollars a day provides an informative if not difficult challenge for anyone. It is an exposure of contrasts between our daily life within and outside the exercise. This year I will be taking the challenge at the University of Mary Washington to raise awareness and funds forLa Ceiba Microfinance. The idea has now spread to many other campuses. To learn more about the challenge, I suggest visiting the website and getting involved.
My Timeline
April 5th – 7th
Participate in the advanced to intermediate levels of TDC. This means living on $2 a day, sleeping outside on Ball Circle, and taking time each afternoon to reflect and discuss issues relating to poverty.
April 8th – 11th
Four days without eating to finish the challenge.
Month of TDC : Peruvian Edition
I was lucky enough to be a participant in the Two Dollar Challenge for two years at the University of Mary Washington and wanted to continue the trend, despite the fact I was studying abroad in Peru.The challenge is an educational exercise and a fundraising tool where participants experience the constraints faced by nearly half the world’s population for five consecutive days. To make things more interesting I decided to expand the challenge to a whole month and see what happens. During my experience I wrote about the things I learned from living on such a small amount of money. It is an exposure of contrasts between my daily life and the challenges of poverty. To learn more about the challenge, I suggest visiting the website and getting involved.
My Timeline
March 28th – 30th
Three days without eating to begin the challenge
April 1st – 5th
Participate in TDC during the same week as my classmates at Mary Washington. This meant $2 per day for everything from bus rides to food.
April 6th – 30th
Live on two dollars of food a day that is permitted to be spent in lump sums. Given that I was abroad one would expect me to enjoy such a life experience, hence excursions and hygienics were excused. This allowed me to make the most of Peru while participating and fundraising on two dollars a day. I also volunteered throughout April in rural communities and low-income areas that helped inform this blog.
Jeff Paddock
Suddenly-Human 