Ben Hess is a CRS international development fellow living in Guatemala and working with savings-led microfinance programs.

Jania Diaz conducting a mock presentation to a savings group at the training-of-trainers workshop in San Marcos in September. Photo by Ben Hess/CRS.

Soft-spoken and reserved, Jania Díaz is not the sort of person to call attention to herself when you first meet her. I met Jania during the training-of-trainers workshop in San Marcos in September 2008, when she was introduced as the Solidarity through Savings project coordinator.

Although she seemed to understand the concepts well, I had a few concerns about whether she was assertive enough to introduce the savings group idea to new communities, motivate and support the animators, and help coordinate the organization of new groups.

My fears proved to be completely unfounded, as I discovered during a recent visit to San Marcos. Jania has played a key role in the successful formation of three women’s savings groups, presenting the method to community leaders and residents, accompanying the new groups, and helping “scale up” the project by establishing contacts with other groups interested in implementing the savings-led microfinance model.

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Ben Hess is a CRS international development fellow living in Guatemala and working with savings-led microfinance programs.

On November 17, Colombia declared a state of emergency to deal with the riots that engulfed various towns after an illegal investment company collapsed. Millions of Colombians had invested in pyramid schemes promising to pay interest rates as high as 150 percent a month. They included many of Colombia’s poorest citizens, who in some cases had handed over their life savings.

In addition to the offer of easy money, a Reuters article attributed the success of the pyramid schemes to high banking fees on regular savings accounts and low levels of financial literacy among the population.

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Ben Hess is a CRS international development fellow living in Guatemala and working with savings-led microfinance programs.

I just returned from a site visit to our savings groups in San Marcos. Three women’s saving groups have already been formed in two communities of San José Ojetenam. Two other groups in a third community are slated to begin after the Christmas holidays. In addition, two representatives from a women’s association in another community recently attended one group’s meeting to observe how it functions. Their association plans to implement the savings-led method as soon as possible.

The secretary of the Nuevo Amanecer (New Dawn) savings group takes attendance during a meeting in San Marcos, Guatemala. The group is one of three women’s savings-led microfinance groups formed with help from CRS in San Marcos. Photo by Ben Hess/CRS.

The group names represent their members’ aspirations and motivation: Nuevo Amanecer (New Dawn), Avances de Mañana (Tomorrow’s Advances), and Ahorrando para Crecer (Saving to Grow). Each group has approximately 20 members.

I observed a Nuevo Amanecer meeting during my visit. This group had the great idea to meet weekly on “market day.” Since many of the members sell their wares at the market, they set aside a portion of their earnings for the savings group. Most were saving between 20 and 50 quetzals a week (approximately $2.70 to $6.70). The group’s fund has already grown to more than $200 in a single month.

Several children were present at the meeting. I learned that a couple of the children had already started saving by contributing small amounts of money to their mothers’ accounts.

The most exciting part of the visit, however, was learning that the project coordinator has also discussed the savings-led microfinance methodology with youth groups. Representatives from four groups were present for the first discussion, but there are a total of 24 groups in the municipality’s Youth Pastorate. Forming savings groups among youth would be an exciting new direction for us here in Guatemala.

The Caritas blog has a post on human trafficking today. The post’s central point is that saving even one person is worth the effort and resources of the international community.

“We are our brothers’ and sisters’ keepers. We are all in this together,” said Chicago’s Cardinal Francis E. George today in Baltimore.

Catholic News Service, reporting from the Baltimore meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said Cardinal George, the bishops’ president, told the gathering that “hard times can isolate us or they can bring us together.”

The Cardinal’s statement was drafted during the annual fall meeting. CNS said the statement was “approved by the body of bishops in a voice vote Nov. 11.”

Ben Hess is a CRS international development fellow living in Guatemala and working with savings-led microfinance programs.

A key component of a successful savings-led microfinance program is the animator.

Commonly referred to as promotor in Spanish (or promotora, in the case of a female animator), the animator’s main role is to organize, train, motivate, and accompany the savings groups from their initiation until they feel comfortable operating without outside help. It’s a difficult task, especially because the animator walks a fine line between providing guidance to the group while respecting the group’s autonomy and empowering members to make their own decisions.

The animator is generally a respected member of the community where the project will be implemented. Since savings groups are often formed as a complement to ongoing CRS projects, the local partner usually selects individuals who have been volunteer trainers or community organizers.

CRS provides training-of-trainers workshops for the animators to acquaint them with savings-led microfinance, provide an introduction to the way the savings groups operate, and present simulated dilemmas to prepare them for their role. Often timid and unsure of themselves at the start, the animators soon capture the concepts and develop their own unique methods to promote and facilitate the groups.

The women we trained in San Marcos are impressive. The animators’ children receive scholarships to attend school through CRS’ “Women’s Empowerment and Girls’ Education Project”, which began in 2002 in order to reduce the endemic poverty and malnutrition in the region.

The women are offered literacy classes, and the two most advanced ones are already in 2o. básico, the equivalent of 8th grade. Furthermore, they motivate other parents to become more involved in supporting their children’s education and encourage these parents to enroll in literacy courses that culminate in a diploma when they complete primaria (6th grade).

The animators’ commitment to their communities and experience in local development made them perfect candidates to form savings groups. Not surprisingly, the animators were able to organize new groups within a few weeks of the CRS training workshop. I cannot wait to visit them later this month to see how the groups are progressing.

Brother Xavier Passat, the National Coordinator of the labor slavery program of Pastoral Land Commission of the Brazilian Episcopal Conference, introduced the topic of labor slavery in Brazil.

The labor slave population he works with is comprised of mostly young men (ages 18-35) who are trafficked to remote northern areas of Brazil. The regions that have seen the highest rates of deforestation in the Amazon also have some of the highest rates of human trafficking and labor exploitation.

Conditions in these areas are terrible (poor water, no medical care, little food) and workers are not given protective gear (gloves, sturdy shoes).

As he painted this dire picture one statement really stood out: “Freeing slaves doesn’t eradicate slavery.” He went on to describe how cycles of human exploitation will continue until root causes are addressed – things such as lack of educational opportunities, poverty, and lax environmental regulation enforcement.

CRS has funded programs to assist in the identification of labor trafficking victims in Brazil as well as to return them to their home communities.

- Jennifer Hardy, CRS communications coordinator

While the majority of the Response to Trafficking in Persons in the Americas conference focused on international human trafficking, there was a great presentation this afternoon on trafficking in the United States.

Brigitte Gynther of Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida talked about her work to end exploitive labor practices of workers in Florida tomato fields.

Owners of massive tomato fields hire subcontractors to take care of finding fieldworkers, and these subcontractors pick out the most able-bodied laborers each morning around 4:30 from gathering places. Conditions in the fields can be brutal even for practices that are technically legal, but there are three ways she has seen people move from unfair treatment to being actual victims of trafficking in farm labor camps:

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“The Human Trafficking in Persons in the Americas,” conference being held at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington D.C. is in its third and final day. The first session focused on trafficking of children in India, Honduras and the United States. Here are a few stats from the information this morning:

*One-fifth of all the children in the world live in India.

*In India, 35 million of 440 million children are involved in child labor, and half of children who work are forced to work 7 days a week. Many work long hours under unsafe and unhealthy conditions.

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At the a trafficking convention in Washington, CRS Country Representative for Moldova Michael McKennitt told the story of Moldova’s transformation with storybook charm

Once upon a time in a country far, far way in Eastern Europe there’s a story with no princesses, no frogs, and no castles. In Moldova, a country that looks like Iowa, there’s a sad and happy story. Moldova is a country if you’re a farmer, you’ll feel at home and if you’re not a farmer you’re wonder what you’re doing there.

In Moldova they speak Romanian. More than 60 percent of the population live in little villages. In those little villages there is no electricity and people live on less than a dollar a day. It is in those little villages Moldova is experiencing the terrible problem of human trafficking.

The little country of Moldova was part of the Soviet Block. Because it was an agricultural country it became the most densely populated country in Eastern Europe. And it is from this little country that the largest proportion of women trafficked for sex are recruited to work throughout Europe. This little country also has high numbers of trafficked children and trafficking in organs. But this is not the happy part of the story. This is just the context for the bigger story I’m about to tell.

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