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 New
Horizons > December
2000
Meet
ECLOF Clients
Transport
of Delight
In
Côte d’Ivoire, Solidarité-Progrès
(Solidarity-Progress) is a local association of small-scale
farmers founded in 1996. It is made up of 14 people, 7 married
women, 5 married men and 2 young people. The members are largely
maize producers around the villages of Yamoussoukkro and Bouafle,
some 20 to 30 km from the capital, Abidjan. Ten members work
their farms and manage the business of the Association in
the local area while four members are based in Abidjan to
take care of the marketing, production and logistics needs
of the business.
 The
group received its first ECLOF loan in 1998. It used the money
to increase its working capital in order to buy produce from
farmers, including each other. The Association stored what
it had bought before selling it on. Besides providing storage
facilities, the group also used its ECLOF loan to hire vehicles
to transport all its produce to buyers.
In 1999, the Association decided to change its transportation
system. It applied for and received a second ECLOF loan of
US$46,300 to buy a 20 ton truck primarily to transport maize
but also to deliver cotton and other products from the region
including plantain bananas, yams and manioc. There is a good
market for these products and the Association knows where
the areas of highest production and market possibilities are.
Until
they bought their own truck, members of the Association and
fellow small-scale crop producers had been forced to accept
the costly and inefficient transport made available to them
by large-scale transport companies. The group chose to buy
a 20 ton truck because it is small enough to negotiate country
roads yet large enough to meet the transport needs of the
local producers efficiently. Also, by having its own means
of transport, the Association can make delivery runs according
to its need rather than to a schedule imposed upon it by a
transport company.
Because
the members of the Association are farmers themselves, they
have an advantage over large-scale transporters from Abidjan
who cannot properly understand the specific needs of, or provide
the flexibility required by the local, small-scale producers
serviced by the Association.
To
ensure that the truck does not return from Abidjan empty after
making a delivery, the Association makes regular pickups of
goods in Abidjan for transport into the interior of the country.
Safer
Camping
An
ECLOF loan has enabled the Greek Evangelical Church of Alexandroupolis
to complete the first phase of an improvement scheme at its
summer camp on the Aegean coast.
 The
Haris (Grace) Family Camping and Conference Centre is some
14 km from Alexandroupolis. The church purchased the land
in 1962 and initially built a small number of very basic lodges,
most constructed without doors or windows, mainly to protect
residents from the sun and rain. Visitors also used tents
when there were no vacancies in the lodges.
Vacations
at Haris are relaxed, family gatherings. Besides normal summer
camping and recreational activities, adults and children take
part in regular worship services, discussions, and Bible reading
and study.
 Although
the Alexandroupolis Church began the centre, two other congregations
in the area are now also involved. There are at present 18
lodges and the centre can accommodate up to 50 people, During
the summer months, Haris is usually full.
The
ECLOF grant of US$8,500 is being used to help fund an overall
five-year improvement project, which will cost US$64,000.
Already, the church has installed fire protection equipment
in three of the lodges and re-equipped the camp kitchen. Fire
protection and electricity will eventually be provided in
all the lodges. Plumbing, doors and windows will also be installed
in 15 of them.
Why
I Am a Keekeeper
By
Daniel Moreno, an ECLOF client in Uruguay, who is a member
of a professional association of beekeepers in which he is
also a trainer and participates in setting the association’s
beekeeping policies.
After
my family, the bees. They are my passion and my daily bread.
 I
began to work with bees in 1978 to complement my income but
I never thought I was going to fall in love with them! In
1996 I resigned from my job as a civil servant to dedicate
myself full-time to bee keeping.
In
spite of some heartache, due to bad harvests, I have never
regretted my decision; if I had to work in an office for eight
hours a day again I do not think I could adapt myself to it.
At
the moment, I work on average for more than 13 hours a day;
sometimes over many weeks I do not have any time off. However,
I am doing what I love to do, and the freedom to work with
and live from what one loves is without price.
Bee
keeping is defined as “the art and science of the breeding
of bees to obtain from them the maximum of profits with a
minimum of costs”.
The
entrepreneur-beekeeper is owner, technical director and employee
of his or her own company. Success or failure depends on the
ability to make the beehives produce the maximum amount of
honey.
When
the price of honey drops, or when other conditions are not
favourable, some beekeepers sell and abandon the activity.
It is purely a business decision. They abandon bee keeping
because they do not love it
To
be a real beekeeper it is necessary to have a vocation. It
is good to be able to make a profit from bee keeping but,
if not, we continue nevertheless. In the meantime we have
to wait for the next harvest with faith and prepare ourselves
to go through a rough economic winter.
 Our
vocation is similar to that of rural teachers or doctors who
love their profession. Their remuneration is not important.
What is important is to serve other people, and to give them
knowledge and love.
The
beekeeper’s work is very heavy. Harvests occur between
the end of the spring and the following autumn, when it is
very hot, with temperatures in excess of 30° C. To work
with beehives requires boots, overalls, a mask and gloves.
The work is usually done out in the full sun, carrying boxes
of honey that weigh 33 kg to 36 kg each. We work from very
early in the morning until the afternoon. When we arrive home
we still have to unload our truck, wash it and load it with
empty boxes ready for the next morning.
On
top of all that, we need good weather and decent prices at
the market in order to make a living.
Each
time I work with my bees I learn something new about their
lives and the behaviour of their marvellous organisation as
a colony, which is about its spirit and synergy. If a bee
stings it dies but the sacrifice is for the defence of the
colony and honey reserves. From their birth, worker bees serve
their fellow bees. They clean, nurture the larva, produce
jelly and wax, and collect nectar, water and pollen. If they
do not give their life to defend other bees, then, at the
end of their lives they go far from the hive to die so that
their bodies will not be a burden to the others.
I
compare this behaviour to that of human beings. We have become
so individualistic, and are far from being a real family where
people bring their own ‘grain of sand’ to the life
of the community and, if necessary, give their lives for the
collective good.
Bee
keeping, in spite of the economic downturns that I have experienced,
has given me much personal satisfaction. I can live off its
results, and have established a family business and created
employment which is ecologically responsible.
If
I did not feel a real vocation, if I did not love what I do,
I would almost certainly not continue to keep bees.
Houses
of God
 Three
church congregations in some of the poorest areas of the Dominican
Republic are using ECLOF loans to provide better facilities
for the worship of God and to serve their local communities
better.
Dominicans
are a people of great Christian faith. However, many Christian
groups are very poor. They often cannot afford to build churches,
and have to worship in the open air.
ECLOF
Dominican Republic offers loans to Christian groups who do
not have alternative financing resources or access to special
loans for the construction and renovation of churches and
other infrastructures. Such loans also support the growth
of collective management skills.
Other
loans go to groups that wish to build community and training
centres for children and adults, as well as meeting rooms
for development organisations.
In
the Dominican Republic commercial banks will not finance the
church sector; government support is very limited and directed
to the Catholic Church, because it is the official church.
The
needs of poor churches are great; past experience has shown
loans have had a positive effect on these communities. For
these reasons, ECLOF Dominican Republic, despite its limited
funds, plans to increase the money it will make available
to churches.
Three
Churches
The
three churches that have received ECLOF loans are all situated
in Santo Domingo. They are the Iglesia Fuente de Agua Viva
(Church of the Source of Living Water), Iglesia Hermanos Unidos
en Cristo (Brothers Church United in Christ), and Iglesia
Yo Soy el Buen Pastor (I Am the Good Pastor Church)
 All
three congregations are relatively small, with under a hundred
members each, but they are well established and have an excellent
record of service in their neighbourhoods.
Each
church has received relatively small loans of between US$2,000–US3,000
but the effect of these cash injections will be great.
The
Iglesia Fuente de Agua Viva has used its loan to buy a simple
wood and tin-roofed building that it has rented for a number
of years. This now gives the congregation a security that
enables it to concentrate on its work within the neighbourhood.
A
year ago, members of the Iglesia Hermanos Unidos en Cristo
raised enough money to buy a piece of land and begin to build
a church. They have now used their ECLOF loan to complete
the work. The money has paid for six windows, a toilet, interior
decoration and benches for the congregation. The church purchased
all the equipment locally to support local incomes.
The
Iglesia Hermanos Unidos en Cristo, in the slum area of Gualey,
has used its ECLOF loan to repair and expand its church building.
Extracts from the church’s ECLOF application are typical
of all three areas in which the ECLOF-supported churches work:
“The
Gualey Barrio is one of several mushrooming slum areas along
the Ozama River where people who cannot afford housing anywhere
else in the city settle. The houses are made of cardboard
and corrugated tin. They are cramped together haphazardly
and from a distance appear to be built one on top of the other.
Since there are no paved roads in the barrio, the streets
turn to mud when it rains, making even walking difficult.
Many
of the people there, particularly the children, are undernourished.
This is due to the fact that they are simply too poor to buy
food or medicine. There is also a high incidence of illness
due to unhygienic conditions in the area. Since there is no
trash collection, it is not at all uncommon to see large piles
of garbage cluttering the streets. Health service, educational
facilities, drinking water and electricity are scarce at best.”
Get
Weaving!
 ECLOF
Myanmar has provided loans to 50 weavers who belong to a project
run by the Gangaw Baptist Association. The weavers own their
machines and have used ECLOF loans to buy raw materials with
which they weave traditional costumes. Gangaw Chin traditional
dresses are extremely popular in the area so there is a good
market for the weavers’ products.
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