Teach a man to fish/teach a woman to administer vision exams
Whenever Guatemala is in the news I get excited–partly because I spent a little bit of time there and find others’ takes on the Maya and the country’s level of development fascinating (e.g. I was overheard saying to my cats a moment ago, “Holy shit, they’re talking about Nebaj on NPR!”), and partly because it seems that Central American countries like Guatemala are rarely in the news for anything other than revelations of tragedies: hunger, syphilis experiments, tropical storms with ensuing mudslides and/or gaping pits that swallow entire villages. But mostly, because, despite the lack of many a creature comfort to which I am accustomed, I really miss it.
I am not a person who believes in the nobility of the poor. I think poverty is a worldwide injustice, a dehumanizing and degrading condition under which billions of people–most of them women and children–are forced to live. If I believed there was such a thing as human nature, I would venture an uninformed guess that dire poverty can bring out the worst in it. The stunting that so often accompanies poverty in all areas of a person’s life is probably one of its greatest crimes, and a major reason why I became a social worker.
With that said, I am consistently impressed by the ways in which people who are very poor, all across the globe, manage to scratch out a living using a combination of imagination and opportunism for survival. Two recent op-eds in The New York Times spotlighted the burgeoning (for nerds who pay attention to things like this) debate over microcredit versus microconsignment as poverty reduction strategies for the rural poor. Both used Guatemala as their example. Very basically, microcredit was pioneered by the Grameen Bank and you have probably heard most about it in parts of India, South Asia and even Africa. It is essentially small loans which are granted to women (sometimes men, but they are notoriously riskier investments, so usually women are the borrowers) to start a business, pay for a class, or otherwise use the money to invest in a money-making venture–social entrepreneurship. The money is then repaid at very low interest to the lending institution. The Times piece pointed out pros and cons to this model: on the pro side, there is little risk for the bank. The onus for innovation and execution is all on the borrower, and since the loans themselves are generally very small, the bank doesn’t lose out much if the borrower defaults. On the con side, there are plenty of ways to abuse the privilege, both on the lending and the borrowing side, and though the hands-off approach has its merits (Mohammed Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, has some convincing arguments as to why the poor should be allowed the dignity to spend their loan as they see fit), there are no mechanisms in place to keep a woman from turning around and giving the money to an abusive husband, or from being swindled by an unscrupulous lender a la the housing mortgage crisis in the U.S. Essentially, the burden is all on the borrower. I do think this approach has its benefits, but as with everything in life, there are many shades: it may work in some places and not others, it may need careful tinkering to ensure success, it may be best implemented as a component of a poverty reduction strategy rather than the strategy in and of itself.
The Guatemalan example highlighted in the Times focused on the inflexibility of some microcredit approaches which are specific to the Latin American context, and suggested that microconsignment could be the more appropriate strategy for certain rural villages (like Nebaj!). Anyone who has been to Guatemala, backpacking or volunteering, has surely been impressed by the amount of weaving cooperatives and artisans’ markets featuring indigenous* products–carving, tapestries, belts–dominating highland villages and USAID-funded non-governmental organizations. Clearly, someone has gotten the message that foreigners will pay a lot of money for Mayan products, especially if you throw something in about the proceeds helping abused women and children. These cooperatives are generally part of a microconsignment collective, where most of the burden–start-up costs, program design and evaluation, bookkeeping, training, education of its borrowers, associated fees–is on the lender. The Peace Corps initiative to cut families’ expenditures on firewood (and degradation of the environment) in highlands Guatemala by training enterprising young locals to install and promote the use of more efficient cookstoves is one such example. In fact, returned Peace Corps volunteers are now the backers (both financially and vision-wise) for a non-profit in Nebaj and surrounding villages called Community Solutions.
I think what foreigners are less prepared to see is the ways in which microcredit or microconsignment strategies, once the money is out of the lenders’ hands, are manipulated by the borrowers. I do not mean manipulated in a negative way, but rather in its intended form: handled, taken charge of. Oftentimes a loan or a business strategy will be used to profit not off foreigners’ dollars or euros, necessarily, but from the quetzales of equally poor neighbors. Take the cell phone scheme, for instance. Many women will take out a loan to purchase a cell phone, which they will then operate as a business out of their home or tienda, charging other villagers for its use. It’s a great idea, since cell phones are expensive, and many people have family members living or working elsewhere (Guatemala City, Mexico or the U.S.) whom they’d like to call once in a while. Sometimes this leads to a situation in which the neighbor can’t pay, so the original borrower will begin microlending herself. This is what I mean by the ingenuity it takes to survive as a poor person. The ability to pull your head out of the mire of crushing poverty, assess your situation fairly, and accurately pinpoint a leverage point in the community’s need off of which you can profit, is all the more impressive when you consider the lack of formal education, outside encouragement, free time, and business acumen often characteristic of poverty.
*Beware large, open-air markets claiming to sell “indigenous”, hand-carved or crafted goods. They might be manufactured in China.
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