Skip to main content

From Mexico: Micro-finance impacts in Chiapas

We met up at the Seattle-Tacoma airport, early on the morning of June 26th.  With loaded backpacks strapped to our bodies, we eagerly walked through the terminal, anticipating the experiences that were going to encounter.  While sitting on the plane, we began to discuss the details of the job we were about to undertake.

With the support of the Blum Center, we have been hired by Freedom from Hunger as consultants to carry out qualitative interviews and quantitative surveys with clients of the Chiapas based microfinance institution, Al Sol.  Freedom From Hunger is a Davis, California based non-profit organization that provides support to microfinance institutions that implement “Credit with Education” programs and village-banking style loans. Freedom from Hunger has worked with Al Sol since they began operating in Mexico.  In 2009, Freedom from Hunger conducted interviews with women in rural communities in five regions of Chiapas: San Cristóbal de las Casas, Bochil, Yajalón, Palenque, and Escuintla.  In the next two months, we will be returning to these areas to conduct follow-up interviews in an effort to determine how their food sovereignty and economic security has changed since first receiving a micro-loan.

We arrived in the smoggy outskirts of Mexico City and quickly hopped on the metro to find a place to sleep. We certainly stood out with our big backpacks, but the other train passengers were happy to make room for us.  The next day was spent getting a feel for the culture and history of Mexico. We ate tacos at the market, admired murals by Diego Rivera, and passed the evening in the streets with thousands of Mexicans rallying for a change of government in the upcoming elections. 

The next night, we caught a bus to the Oaxacan coast to soak up some rays and relax before starting work at the beginning of the month. Our time on the coast can be characterized by: sunburns, fish tacos, and clear water. We journeyed further south through the night, to San Cristobal de las Casas, where the Al Sol central office is located.  In the morning, we met Matilde, the director of the Freedom from Hunger office in Mexico.  The next few days were filled with meetings at Al Sol and exploration of San Cristobal.

What a wonderful town this is: cobblestone streets, colorful flags, sweet music, delicious food, friendly people, an exciting history, beautiful crafts, and two toned adobe and stucco homes.  We found a nice place to live and have quickly been welcomed into a community. Tomorrow we leave for several weeks of interviews.  Kelly is off to Bochil, and Willee to Yajalón.  When we finish these regions, we will meet up in Palenque, and then head to Escuintla.  Despite our comfort here in San Cristobal, we could not be more excited to get started interviewing campesinas in Chiapas.  

Willee Roberts and Kelly Taylor
UC Davis undergraduate students in International Relations
July, 2012

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome to the UC Davis Blum Center Blog!

Here you will find updates on our organization, and blog posts written by each of our Blum Fellows about their experiences abroad. Make sure to check out our website at blumcenter.ucdavis.edu, and like us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/UCDavisBlumCenter to get regular updates and see our upcoming events.
Post a Comment
Read more

Manufacturing in Phnom Penh by Purva Juvekar

During winter and spring quarter 2017, my teammates and I (Team WASHOut) designed a sanitation station using a Biosand Filter. This was our effort towards providing clean water to students in floating schools on the Tonle Sap lake. We were provided with the opportunity to go to Cambodia and implement our project in person through the Blum grant, and we worked with Wetlands Work!, our clients for the senior design class. Figure 1 Rendering of Sanitation Station   We spent our time at UC Davis designing the station – sketches, CAD models, renderings, dimensions, engineering analysis and testing. We made a prototype in Davis, which we showed during the Senior Design Showcase in June, to test flow rates and water quality standards. The next step was to take the design to Phnom Penh and manufacture it there. We got to work as soon as we got there. My teammate and I were introduced to people on the WW! team who could help with translation, and we began scouting the city to fin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Pedaling for Water in Kisumu: Closing, By Abe McKay

Pedaling for Water in Kisumu: Closing (3 of 3) 2017.09.12 In my second week in Kenya, I was back to visiting farmers, both with Vibrant Village and through other connections. However, I receive my biggest surprize in between site visits. I was walking with Ernest Kulali, a field officer and farmer from Vibrant Village, and he was telling me about the effectiveness of farming techniques. Using traditional methods, Ernest was getting 20kg of maize (corn) in a season from his shamba , his farm . When he switched to using purchased seeds and fertilizer, the same land produced 360 to 540kg of maize. What!? I had him run the numbers by me again, 20kgs → the range of 400kgs. I still didn’t believe it, but Nick the Vibrant Village director later agreed that farmers were seeing that magnitude of increase. Not just doubling their income/food supply, but a twenty-fold return! Further farming modifications will not yield as large a jump, but that sort of scale encouraged me that changing te...
Post a Comment
Read more