The Oberlin Review
<< Front page News March 14, 2008

Student Takes on Poverty
 
Growing Financial Stability unior Kalan Sherrard explores a display by senior Rachel Rothgery (right), advertising an initiative intended to lift women out of poverty.
 

The heart-wrenching poster swinging on a tree trunk outside Wilder Bowl tells the tale of beleaguered Guatemalan mother Do&ntilde;a Terrenca. Red roses and purple carnations hang down from the branches, posing in stark contrast to the surrounding snow-covered scenery. Their vivid colors beckon passersby to stop and learn about a new student microfinance initiative for women in Guatemala.

College senior Rachel Rothgery has started a project in microfinance, a strategy giving a grant to one person or a small group of people who use the money to start a business endeavor that will provide them with a sustained income.

Rothgery came into contact with the women through a friend of her fianc&eacute;, who lives in Guatemala.

She plans for the loans to go to women because, she says, “the women are the ones who have to take care of everything [domestically], but the women aren’t allowed to do anything.” Guatemala in particular has a high rate of alcoholism and domestic violence, and females there often have to spend the majority of their time tending to their families.

Impoverished people worldwide find it nearly impossible to get loans from traditional banks because their lack of property betrays their inability to repay the bank with collateral if they default. Corporate banks scoff at requests for such miniscule loans and charge interest rates that are much too steep for the poverty-stricken to realistically handle.

Rothgery hopes to earn $2,000 by March 22 to finance the construction of houses for the two families led by single mothers, one of whom is Terrenca. Rothgery also aims to collect several hundred dollars to pay for sewing machines and sewing lessons for these women and six more who are living in similar situations.

Currently, it takes weeks for these women to make a single garment; sewing machines and instructive lessons will increase the speed with which they produce textiles. The women take pride in their craft. New machines will preserve their approach and also rapidly increase their revenue. The eight women will likely be given loans in two groups of four, encouraging them to hold each other accountable for pooling together money to pay back the loan.

According to the Oberlin Student Cooperative Association’s coordinator for the Nicaragua Sister Co-op, senior Katherine Buckingham, OSCA gives 97 percent of its microfinance funds to women. OSCA runs the only other microfinance program on Oberlin’s campus, and gives $5,000 a year in individual loans to struggling farmers to enable them to buy seeds and livestock. OSCA’s Nicaragua Sister Co-op has a return rate of just over 50 percent, which may be attributed to the unreliable nature of agriculture.

Textile production, on the other hand, should be a relatively stable investment. Rothgery fully expects to receive full repayment from the women, pointing out, “If they fail, they’ve lost their only way to work their way out of poverty.” Payback rates for microfinance projects around the world consistently reach near 100 percent. ACCION International, a private microfinance nonprofit, reports repayment rates of 95 percent, while the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh claims to have a 99.01 percent return.

Rothgery set up her eye-catching display because, while she is applying for grants from organizations such as Do Something, she knows she will also need the help of inspired Oberlin students. “If I just put it on a sign, it would be easy to walk on by,” she said of her unconventional signage.

“These women are being wasted,” she said, “and their children are being wasted, too.”


 
 
   

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