Much more than loans: people sharing bread
In the last issue of New Horizons (p.
21), we reported on how Armenian ECLOF welcomed visitors
from the Church of Sweden. Roger Marklund, from the church's
international department, tells the story from his point
of view.
We had not heard much about Echmiadzin before our trip.
Now, the former capital of Armenia is a familiar place
to us as a result of our visit to Armenian ECLOF and the
work they are doing from their base in the city.
Most members of our five-person delegation came from local
parishes in Sweden, where they play a crucial role in promoting
development education and raising money for development
projects. The idea to make this visit came out of a Church
of Sweden national training course on the theme of “Everyone's
right to good food”, during which special attention was
given to microfinance as a means by which people can make
this right become a reality. We wanted to see what effect
microcredit schemes were having in various countries, and
so we arranged study visits to Cambodia, Peru and Armenia.
Solidarity groups
Armenian ECLOF's director, Tigran Hovhannisyan, and his
staff took us to some very poor areas of Armenia in the
Lory Region. There, we met “solidarity groups” that had
received ECLOF loans.
When Aida Movsisyan and her family came to live the village
of Ardjut in 1992, the village helped her family to build
a house, acquire land and begin agricultural activities.
Many years ago, Mrs Movsisyan adopted and raised two children
whose mother had died when they were still very small.
One of these children is Arshak Srapyan. Today, he is a
member of the Luys Solidarity Group, which is a client
of Armenian ECLOF in Ardjut. The group consists of 13 members,
who, all together, received a loan for the equivalent of
US$3,400. With this sum, they were able to develop cattle-breeding
activities and see their farms grow. The Luys Solidarity
Group says that ECLOF was the first organization to help
them to improve their living conditions by giving them
the loans necessary to keep and develop their farms. They
have now regained hope for a much brighter future.
The Arghasar-1 solidarity group in the town of Stepanavan
told us that its members are collectively responsible for
their loans and repayment. They explained that this is
a good system because it is almost impossible for individuals
who are poor to manage these things on their own.
Eight young men make up the Arghasar-1 group. Previously,
they were all unemployed, could not see any future in Armenia,
and were considering emigrating. They approached several
Armenian microfinance institutes but their interest rates
were too high. In any case, the men were told that they
were not eligible for loans. This is when they turned to
ECLOF. With ECLOF, they found a different approach and
felt treated with respect and dignity. ECLOF showed the
men how to form a solidarity group, what to use as collateral,
and how to complete a project proposal to see if their
ideas were realistic and sustainable.
The Arghasar-1 group has now been granted a second ECLOF
loan. When we met the men on the outskirts of Stepanavan,
it was a sunny afternoon and they had just filled their
barn with fodder for the winter season. The group owns
five cows, 14 calves and four pigs. The group's main activity
is meat production but they have recently begun bee keeping
and now have around 20 hives. The sale of honey will add
substantially to their overall income.
In the same area, we met the Katnarat-1 solidarity group.
Thirteen young men, two of them Russians, belong to Katnarat-1.
Their re-built farmhouse is in an area that was seriously
damaged by the 1988 earthquake. There is still a lot of
rubble around from the remains of destroyed houses.
As with Arghasar-1, this group is also into a second ECLOF
loan, which it is using to expand its meat and milk production
business. The group has 25 cows and 40 calves, and its
members also plan to expand into cheese making. The area
used to be famous for its cheese, and exported much of
it.
In Armenia, unemployment is high and many young men remain
idle after their military service. However, the members
of both the solidarity groups that we met have found that
with hard work, and backed up by an ECLOF loan, it is possible
to make a decent living.
Mrs
Aida Movsisyan (centre) is the adoptive mother of Arshak
Srapyan, a member of the Luys Solidarity Group located
in Ardjut, a village in the Lory Region of Armenia. She
welcomes Andrea Scleeh (left), a Church of Sweden pastor,
and Armine Baghramyan, an Armenian ECLOF administrative
assistant, with some home-made, mouth-watering bread and
cheese. When Christians say the Lord's Prayer, they ask, "Give
us today our daily bread". Much of the work of ECLOF
is centred on helping that prayer become a reality for
those who have too little to eat.
Refugees
We also visited some remote villages in the area around
the town of Tashir. Many of the villagers are refugees,
who fled from Azerbaijan to Armenia 1988 and 1989 as a
result of the war between the two countries. Times are
tough for everyone in Armenia, as a result of the war,
the earthquake, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
subsequent collapse of the country's industries and infrastructure.
However, the situation is even worse for refugees. Therefore,
ECLOF has focused on some of the areas where many of the
refugees live.
We met several refugees who are now ECLOF clients. Many
had recently begun small-scale farming and cattle breeding
enterprises. They told us that one of their problems had
been the high cost of transporting the milk produced by
individual farms. The farmers began discussions with ECLOF
to see what could be done. They found that the cost of
fuel for the truck used to transport the milk could be
drastically lowered if the truck were to use gas instead
of diesel. The technology is well known and commonly used
in Armenia. Filling stations for gas are as common as those
that sell other fuels. ECLOF provided a loan to pay for
the conversion of the truck's engine, and, today, farmers
are making a profit from their milk production businesses.
We felt that ECLOF's openness to all aspects of production
and consumer chains is benefiting all its partners.
Lives enriched
The ECLOF clients we met told us how microcredit had changed
their lives. By co-operating with their neighbours and
working together, people can now pay for their children's
education, enjoy a better standard of living and contribute
to the development of their communities. They have also
learnt project management and economic planning skills,
and now that they are taxpayers feel much more part of
their society and able to contribute to its development.
Armenian ECLOF is still a small agency with less than
3,000 clients and a relatively small loan portfolio. However,
Armenian ECLOF is a learning organization, and it is continually
strengthening its ability to serve the Armenian people.
ECLOF definitely has a role to play in shaping the country's
future at national, regional and local levels.
Those of us from the Church of Sweden who visited Armenia
are proud to be part of the ECLOF family. We are now spreading
news of ECLOF and its activities in Armenia throughout
our parishes in order that more people will support this
vital work.
Tell me by text
The cell phone is becoming more and more part
of everyday life. Many have a love-hate relationship
with their 'mobile'. However, as ECLOF Philippines reports,
it has provided a solution to a problem that threatened
to prevent microcredit reaching those who could put it
to good use.
Rev. Mario Abellera is a Methodist
pastor with a small congregation in the far-flung town
of Bataraza in the Palawan province of the Philippines.
He is also chairman of the Tribal Christian Multi-Purpose
Cooperative (TRICAMCO). Bataraza is 250 kilometres from
the provincial capital, Puerto Princesa. It takes more
than six hours to travel from Bataraza to Puerto Princesa
by bus because of the unpaved and rough road. Worse, public
transport is only available until three in the afternoon.
Anyone missing this bus must wait until the next day to
travel.
ECLOF Philippines has a branch in Puerto Princesa. Last
year, we agreed to provide microfinance for TRICAMCO so
that it could provide credit to its members. The cooperative
organized 19 groups and ECLOF conducted the necessary loan
evaluation. Those clients who passed the evaluation were
granted loans. The total due to be received by members
for their first loans came to US$14,600.
However, one problem prevented us from releasing the loan.
We had no office in Bataraza where TRICAMCO is based. For
an ECLOF staff member to travel to Bataraza to monitor
repayments of the loan would be too costly and eat up all
the income from the loan. Though there was a bank in Bataraza,
it was not connected to the Internet because there was
no landline available. Without any staff or office in the
area, how could the ECLOF Palawan branch know if clients
were making their repayments on time? We had had some poor
experiences with other cooperatives, and so we were naturally
cautious this time.
Faced with this dilemma, we contacted the bank in Bataraza
where repayments were to be made. To our astonishment and
delight, the bank manager told us there was an easy answer
to our problem, and one the bank had been using for over
a year.
In 2003, a telecommunications company had installed a
mobile phone network in Bataraza. It was like manna from
heaven for the bank because it meant it could send details
of repayments by SMS, or text messaging to whomever needed
them. With this technology available, our Palawan branch
was able to make the loans and now receives daily reports
of amounts repaid at the bank. If any payments have not
been made, details are included in the messages and we
then contact TRICAMCO so that Pastor Abellera and his colleagues
can deal with the problem before it gets out of hand.
