Current Projects

While teaching and consulting are my primary responsibilities, the Peace Corps encourages us to take on secondary projects.  At the moment, I’m trying to start up a community bank and apply for a grant.

What is a community bank?  I’m glad you asked.  Well, Nicaragua isn’t exactly like the USA where you can just walk into a bank and apply for a loan or open a savings account.  In fact, as my dedicated followers know, the nearest bank to me is 40 minutes by bus.  Needless to say, that leaves millions of Nicaraguans unbanked without an access to credit.  Therefore, the Peace Corps uses the system of community banks as substitution for real brick and mortar banks.  Here’s how it works: a group of people who trust each other decide that want engage in financial planning (may take a little convincing from yours truly…).  Then they elect a president to run the meetings and a secretary to record the finances (obviously I’m not either for the sake of sustainability).  Now with some direction, they vote on a quota – the amount of money that every person invests monthly.  After the first round of deposits, people can lobby to take out a loan.  If the group votes to extend said person a loan, the person must repay the loan next month with 10% interest (sounds high but it’s easy to calculate and it’s much lower than real banks here).  After a predetermined amount of time, the bank expires and everyone receives their originally invested money plus any equally distributed interest.  Then after seeing the success, they restart the bank for another term.

Of course this is an over simplified example.  I suggest some basic rules and explain the benefits but they can vote and run the bank as they see fit.  Additionally, this system works because everyone knows everyone else and therefore would not risk social humiliation by defaulting on their loan.  Example, I plan on running the bank with my fellow teachers in the highschools.  Also, forget about the interest earned, just learning how to save money would be a huge accomplishment for them.  The joke is that they receive their monthly salary on the last Friday of the month and by Monday, it’s gone.

This may sounds super Peace Corps-y but I’m helping write a grant to build some wells in rural communities near me.  I’m working with the mayor’s office to price supplies, labor and create a presentation to give to the decision panel.

I’m excited for both these projects; cross your fingers that they get realized!