Here is the story. I have a son in the Angeles, Philippines Mission. Paul has about 6 months to go on his mission. (I attached a picture of him and his zone). He is the tall blonde in the upper right corner. He wrote me a few months ago about his desire to come home from his mission, study business and become a successful business man so he could return to the Philippines and start a business that paid a good wage. He had just learned that a family he was teaching had an older son that just got a good job. The family was very happy because this son would be paid $3 per day to work 12 hours on a farm plus a one hour bus ride to and from the job. The family was excited about the additional income.Paul’s desire to help the poor reminded me of something I learned about a few years ago called Micro Banking. Micro Banking is making loans to the poor that would otherwise be unable to get loans. The story I remember reading about Micro Banking and how it started goes like this. (This is from my faulty memory)
In the 1970’s a Supreme Court Judge in India was concerned for the poor that were literally dying of starvation outside the building he worked in. He took it upon himself to find the reason for their poverty. He went to a small village of 25 to 30 families nearby to learn more. The homes in the village were of dirt floors and bamboo walls and roofs. No running water, plumbing or electricity. The children did not attend school and hunger was always present.
He started with a woman that had 2 or 3 kids and no husband. He asked her what she did for a living. She said she made furniture out of bamboo. He inquired about the details. She said a man brought her bamboo and she soaked it then bent it into furniture and gave it back to the man who brought her the bamboo. She earned twenty-five cents a day for this work. He began to think how he could improve her life. (This is key to successful Micro Banking, as the poor often do not know how to make their situation better, like the rest of us.) He asked her how much money it would cost to buy the bamboo herself and then sell it herself. She responded, “twenty-five cents”. He then loaned her twenty-five cents interest free. He went to the other homes in the village and did the same depending on their situation. In total he loaned out $25 dollars. Within 2 years, everyone in the village had cement floors, running water, electricity, kids attending school and food in the house. For $25 dollars the lives of 25 families changed forever. This is the essence of Micro Finance. (MF) By the way, all the loans were repaid in full.
So I told Paul, my missionary son in the Philippines’, about Micro Banking (MB). I asked him to find “one good man” that we can trust. This “one good man” would be our paid Micro Banking Representative in the Philippines. He would find the poor, assist them, make loans and be our representative. About a month later, Paul wrote back and said he had found the “one good man” His name is Rodel. Rodel is 33, married with 3 children. (Picture attached.) In the past two or three months I have contacted Rodel and we have worked together to setup our own MB project. Getting started was slow. Just getting money to him was a process. We now use www.emoneygrams.com I paid for a computer for his home so I could communicate with him. He put an additional $350 dollars of his own money into my $400 and upgraded the computer himself without my knowledge because he wanted it to work well. I pay for the internet at his home so we can communicate through email and Skype. (Web Video Cameras)
Rodel works full time at a call center. He earns about $160 U.S. per month at the call center working full-time. I pay him $75 U.S. per month for his part time work with me and the MF Project along with the cost of the internet which is about $12 per month. It is my goal to get enough financial backing and commitment to make Rodel a full-time employee. This would allow for many more loans to be made.
The next blog describes our first canidate for Micro Banking.
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