Dominican Republic Adventures Part 3

After visiting the 4 HOPE clients in Hato Mayor and San Pedro, I was pretty excited about the work HOPE is doing around the world. On the last few days of my trip in the Dominican Republic. A group of the summer interns, a HOPE employee, and a couple HOPE supporters came down to do a weekend trip. With this group we went to a couple bank meetings and met another client in Consuello. In August, most of the HOPE interns went back to school, so it was nice to see them again down in the DR.

We drove about 30 minutes down a pretty bad dirt road in San Pedro to get to our first bank meeting. It was really interesting to see a group of clients paying back their loans. They went around the room and explained their business. Then the loan officer led a couple worship songs and a quick passage from the Bible. For the next 30 minutes or so, the loan officer collected, counted, and recorded the loan payments. This meeting was pretty subdued in comparison to the next meeting we went to.

After that first meeting, we headed down another dirt road to another village. We visited two ladies who had received home loans alongside their business loans. They showed us their homes and they both were beaming with happieness. With the home loan they poured a concrete floor, patched holes in the roof, and bought solid wood doors. We then went to a bank meeting in this village. There were about 30 members at the meeting and it was an interesting environment. They all welcomed us to the meeting and seemed really excited that we were visiting. They began their bank meeting much like the other meeting, but this meeting went much longer. One member didn't come with his payment, so the group had to cover that sum of money. It was 1,500 pesos and the bank president went to each bank member collecting money. He wrote down everything that people put in to cover the missing person and then would make sure that the money was paid back to those people. I am glad that the meeting didn't go as planned because it allowed us to see more facets of microfinance at work. At the end of the meeting, the loan officer asked if there was anyone present who couldn't read or write. About a handful of people raised their hands and the loan officer signed them up for literacy courses. Just another benefit of being apart of the community bank.

On the way back to Santo Domingo, we stopped in and visited a client named Mayra. She began taking loans from Esperanza 10 years ago when Esperanza began operating. She ran various businesses to support her family. Her first loan was for 1,500 pesos ($50) and her most recent loan was for 400,000 pesos ($10,000). Mayra now has a furniture retail store and she said in the last year she had over 1 million pesos in orders. She can barely keep up with the demand. Mayra stressed the importance of capital in her business. After building up her credit and business, Mayra could have received a loan from a commercial bank and at a better interest rate, but Mayra decided to stay with Esperanza. Mayra said, "Esperanza has blessed me, and I want to bless others through Esperanza." It was great to her multiple clients repeat the importance of Esperanza (HOPE) in their lives.

Bank in Santo Domingo we visited an Esperanza Clinic where clients could get cheap healthcare. For just a couple dollars they could be checked out by the top of the line medical professionals and all this just because they are a part of Esperanza. Many clients said, "Esperanza is more than a bank to me, it is my family...they care about my health and family."

This was an incredible trip because it validated why I have been volunteering for the past 4 months. I am glad that this trip only made me believe more in Microfinance. It is a very viable means to help people escape poverty and improve their families lives.