The transition that is accomplished by these women is no small feat. Even during my limited time in Haiti I was taken aback by the achievements of these inspirational women. I had the great pleasure of meeting women who, in a short space of time, had gone from being marginalised within their own communities to becoming active members of those communities. These women, who only recently had been considered the poorest members of their communities, were now running their own successful micro enterprises. After my time with Fonkoze I have no doubt about the success this organisation has in fighting poverty in one of the poorest countries in the World.
Source: seachangefoundation.ie
Inside a Fonkoze internship: Q&A with Julia Perri
Julia Perri in the Central Plateau doing research on CLM.
Where are you from?
Stamford, CT, USA
Where do you go to school?
I am doing a Masters in International Development and International Economics at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS).
How did you find out about Fonkoze?
Through Sonia Lee who was working at Fonkoze USA. I went to a Haiti Reconstruction Job Fair at the Haitian Embassy in DC and stopped by the Fonkoze table to talk to her.
What do you wish more people knew about it?
That Fonkoze does more than just microfinance loans - they have a diverse array of products and programs.
What have you done during your internship?
I worked with the administrator for Chemen Lavi Miyò, Fonkoze’s program for the ultra-poor, on organizational processes and training. I also created a research project with some wonderful CLM team members, did qualitative interviews in the field in the Central Plateau and wrote and presented my report. We investigated the Village Assistance Committees in the CLM program to find out what was working and what was not working, and made recommendations for the future.
What’s been your favorite experience in Haiti?
Hiking to Fondation Seguin in the mountains. It is a magical place! Also walking through Sodo, our little town in the Central Plateau, and talking to everyone on the road everyday was pretty fun, and great for my Kreyol.
How is Haiti different than you expected?
I met lots of “middle class” people - even though the news will tell you that they don’t exist in Haiti. Also - I didn’t expect the Citadel and Palais Sans Souci would be so incredibly beautiful - I’m very glad I went.
What were you thinking when you heard about the earthquake?
I found out about it on the news. It made me want to come and work in Haiti even more than I had already.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
I love to go out salsa dancing with friends, go to Pilates class, eat good food, go to the beach and travel.
Tell us something that people are surprised to learn about you.
Well, Haitians are surprised I play soccer and Americans are surprised I want to work in Haiti.
Tell us about a strong woman in your family who inspires you.
I have a great aunt who spent a lot of her adult life abroad teaching. She is wordly, open-minded and has great stories of raising her kids in Asia. Her husband was in the State Department. She is elderly now, and dealing with an illness. However, she is tough, active, and always positive and realistic. She remains the matriarch of her family and makes sure the family all spends time together. Whenever she talks to any of us young people, she always remembers the details of our lives, small and large, and listens attentively to our updates.
What’s your proudest moment at Fonkoze?
It’s hard to pick out one time that I was most proud of our research team this summer, but one day in Boukan Kare takes the cake: Our Social Impact Monitor, our CLM Program Manager partner from Concern Worldwide, one of our Case Managers and I were all traveling via our tough scrambler motorcycles since 5 am. The terrain is really tough, and we had already forded several rivers and gone through thick mud. We came upon a really big river that we couldn’t ride the bikes through. Instead of turning around, the team got in the water and pushed the bikes through the fast current one by one. Then, we all rode for several more hours until we could do our interviews way up in the mountains.
Intern Q&A: Brian Iniguez
Brian Iniguez with a Fonkoze client.
Where are you from?
I am Canadian-Ecuadorian. I have lived in Cuenca, Ecuador and Toronto, Canada, but I have spent the majority of my life in Canada.
Where do you go to school?
I am in the International MBA program at the Schulich School of Business, York University in Toronto. My focus is on International Business and Finance.
How did you find out about Fonkoze?
The International MBA program that I am enrolled in requires that every student complete an internship in their respective regions of specialization. My region is Latin America and the Caribbean.
This being said I had to find an organization within my region and I have always been interested in international development so I began to inquire about companies involved in economic development within the Latin American and Caribbean region.
Then luckily one day an alumnus from my program working with MEDA came to do a presentation on the organization and some of their partners, with one of them being Fonkoze. He also informed me that another student from our program just a few years ago had done an internship with Fonkoze as well. After doing some more research and speaking with the previous intern I was convinced that Fonkoze was an organization that I would love to work for so I went through the whole application process and now I’m here and loving every minute of it!
What have you done during your internship?
During my three month stay here I have been working with the Business Development, Special Loans, and Zafen divisions of the organization. The purpose of the work has been to try and come up with a strategic plan to integrate the financial services within Fonkoze even further and to uncover other opportunities in order to grow the suite of financial products Fonkoze currently offers.
As it turns out, Business Development was facing some of the biggest and most pressing challenges relative to the other two divisions, so I have spent most of my time working within this division. Within Business Development I have worked with the new director in conducting analysis and evaluation on how to restructure this division in order to ensure a sustainable profit. I have specifically worked on new supervision, monitoring and incentive structures to implement within the division and I made a presentation to Fonkoze’s Board of Directors regarding the proposed restructuring.
Within the Special Loans division I have had the opportunity of helping to organize and participate in a focus group with the “Madam Saras,” which are Haitian women traders who buy merchandise to bring back to Haiti for resale from places such as Miami, New York, Panama, and even as far as Taiwan and China! This is truly incredible given many of them only know how to speak Haitian Creole and they are going off to far away foreign countries and negotiating deals on merchandise being purchased. The purpose of the focus group was to explore ways in which the Special Loans division can further enhance the financial services product it currently provides to the Madam Saras. The main constraint right now is that the demand from the Madam Saras is so high that the available supply of financing at the moment cannot meet the demand without posing significant business risk to Fonkoze. I have been working with the Director of Special Programs on options to expand this portfolio without incurring further business risk.
Within Zafen, the purpose of the work is to identify clients who have graduated from the zero-interest funding program to the Business Development division that charges clients an interest rate that is competitive within the Haitian market in order to help them enter the formal Haitian economy and turn into bankable clients.
What’s your proudest moment at Fonkoze?
My proudest moment at Fonkoze was being asked to make a presentation to the Fonkoze Board of Directors on the Business Development division, more specifically on the proposed plan to restructure the division and the change in strategy. I was very excited and honoured to present to the Board of Directors given most members on the board are very well distinguished and well known individuals within the microfinance industry. It was also gratifying to know that upper-management had the confidence in my abilities to allow me to present to the Board of Directors.
The presentation went very well and the proposal to make this strategic change was approved. At the end of the presentation, Father Joseph, one of the principal founders of Fonkoze, asked me what my commitment was to Fonkoze. I did not quite understand what he meant so I repeated the question back to him to ensure I had heard him correctly and he stated that yes, I had heard correctly. I told him that I would be here until August 18th, which marked my three month commitment of my internship. He then asked me if I would reconsider and stay longer. I told him and the rest of the Board that as much as I would like to stay longer and work on implementing this structural change, I had to head back to finish my MBA program.
This made me proud because it was vindication of all the hard work we had done over the past several weeks. Clearly Father Joseph was impressed enough by the information and proposed changes in the presentation to extend an invitation for me to stay longer. I promised him I would try to recruit some more MBAs from my program to come and intern with Fonkoze the next year and I will definitely put all of my efforts into doing so.
Inside a Fonkoze internship: Q&A with Jacqueline Ackerman
As if asking them to spend a sweltering summer working in Haiti weren’t enough, we asked our interns another favor. Tell us about it! Here’s our first response, from intern Jacqueline Ackerman of Fonkoze’s Zafen project. Thanks, Jacqueline! Look out for more Q&As on our blog in the coming weeks.
Here, Jacqueline (second from left) works with Zafen’s senior business analyst (far right), a fellow intern, and a bakery manager (far left) to talk about how his business in Croix-des-Bouquets is doing and see how Zafen can help.
Where are you from?
I’m from Haiti and the US. I was born in the US but my family moved to Haiti when I was a baby, and I grew up here. I moved back to the States, specifically Indiana, when I graduated high school. I have been working and studying in Indiana ever since, although I hope once grad school is done to move back to Haiti or at least out of the States.
Where do you go to school?
I am a grad student at Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs. I’m studying comparative and international affairs, policy analysis, and nonprofit management.
How did you find out about Fonkoze?
When I lived here, my school educated its students about different initiatives throughout the country, and I remember them bringing in people to tell us about Fonkoze and its work in Haiti. Fonkoze has been on my radar ever since!
What have you done during your internship?
I’m the Zafen program intern, and do basic program support work like editing profiles for projects to be funded. Zafen provides a platform for lenders to give zero-interest loans to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) that are trying to grow jobs or have some other type of positive community impact. The SME sector is defined differently depending on the country, so a lot of my work here involves creating a catalog and a database of Haitian SMEs in order to better define the sector here. It involves a lot of travel all around the country, which means I have been able to see many places that I never went in all my years growing up here.
What’s been your favorite experience in Haiti?
I would have to say that my favorite experiences in Haiti have been all of the traveling and site visits I have been able to do during my time here. When I lived here, I traveled a little but but I feel like I never went to many places besides as a tourist. I have loved being able to meet people who are sincerely motivated to help their country recover and help their communities by providing jobs and other services. Through meeting regular, everyday citizens that are working hard to help each other, I have really been encouraged and my impression of Haiti’s recovery has become much more positive than it was previously.
What’s your most valued moment at Fonkoze?
The Zafen team met with a community organization in the town of St. Suzanne, in the north of the country. We were trying to share information about Zafen and see if there was any way for us to work with this organization to help them accomplish their goals for improving the community. As we were walking through the community, a farmer had us stop and share some fresh coconuts and mangos with him. I have lived in Haiti for many years but have rarely felt so welcome and valued in a community as I was there. Another moment I felt proud of myself was when our senior business analyst began sending me out to do site visits with a fellow intern and no one else. I realized that this meant apparently someone thinks my language abilities are good enough that I won’t completely embarrass the organization on my own! I have been working hard to improve my Creole skills so it was a nice affirmation!
