The Second Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love

Helene Dudley

While Peace Corps remains the “toughest job you’ll ever love,” RPCV development work is not far behind. Even after 10 years and 650 loans, The Colombia Project continues to face its share of challenges, the same emotional roller coaster ride that defines Peace Corps service. In this case, the highs typically come from seeing the good results achieved by our partners in Colombia, while the lows are populated by missed opportunities.

Within the last six months, Colombia Project partners in Génova, Quindío and Ariguaní, Magdalena pleasantly surprised us by recruiting new micro-loan sites. On Sister Ruby’s recommendation, we added Puerto Tejada in December, while Ariguaní will start issuing micro-loans in a nearby rural community in June, much as Santa Marta has done by offering micro-loans in Cienaga. This cooperation is a welcome advance from the days when partners appeared concerned about competing for Colombia Project resources. Sister Ruby has two more sites waiting in the wings as soon as we have sufficient funds to make a commitment to additional partners.

Although effective development work is often achieved through the vision, initiative, and tireless work of remarkable individuals, there is the danger of the work collapsing when a key person withdraws. Thus, to have outstanding administrators who are seemingly irreplaceable is both a blessing and a curse. During a March visit to Ariguaní, it was reassuring to see how well APDES functions while its president, Aura, is away completing Ph.D. studies in Chile. She works with her board by email and SKYPE and makes periodic visits, including one this June to provide pre-loan training to the rural community. The Ariguaní model will be invaluable in working towards sustainability within Colombia.

Initially, The Colombia Project set a loan limit, but problems arose when everyone asked for the maximum. It’s a struggle to convince partners that if a $50 loan will help, a $150 loan will not be three times as helpful. It is more likely to sink the borrower in a sea of debt from ill-considered investments. The first loans Sister Ruby issued in August of 2007, for $500 and $750, are still only 63% and 94% repaid; but they taught a valuable lesson. As a result, 124 of the 174 subsequent Génova loans, with an average size of $208, have been repaid in full.

While The Colombia Project provides guidelines and resources, the reality is that the partners are in a much better position to determine how to best implement programs in their communities. No matter how often we visit from Miami, and how much we learn, we serve the community better by supporting rather than controlling.

Training for our administrators would be an asset, but only if it is developed within Colombia by those with hands-on experience. When we bring our partners together each year we encourage them to learn from each other and share best practices, with the long term goal of developing additional guidelines for new partners.

A significant fact is that although partners are entitled to keep a portion of the repayments (equal to 50% of the amount sent from the u.S.) to cover their costs and fund other initiatives, none of our partners took their share of repayments or their interest earnings, because they viewed this as depleting the loan pool. At the same time, the reporting process was becoming exceedingly onerous and some complained about working without compensation. In 2010, we successfully addressed both issues.

We reconciled the partners’ detailed fi nancial information with our own records to establish a baseline (Cartagena and Santa Marta opted not to participate) and then created a simplifi ed reporting process. Partners now only send a list each month of repayments received, new loans issued, and a running balance. We update our detail report in Miami, balance to their month-end balance, calculate their interest earnings (Génova has earned over $3,500 US in interest) and calculate exactly how much they have earned through successful loan management. It took months of encouragement and but Génova has now drawn down $6,500 US to finance community projects and still has $3,000 available. Sister Ruby has learned that these withdrawals do not deplete the loan pool, since The Colombia Project sends additional allocations to cover the full micro-loan needs of the community. She is now our ally in helping other administrators better understand the opportunities available to them.

Recruiting new members and creation of an administrator’s support network are important steps towards sustainability and transferring oversight to Colombia. At the partners’ meeting this fall, we will review the financial tracking system in hopes of transferring that function to someone in Colombia. Fundraising is less of a concern. Once the permanent loan pool reaches $5,000, a program is near the limit of the partners’ capacity for loan administration and thus, like Cartagena and Santa Marta, the need for continued involvement with The Colombia Project is diminished.

However, the new trend in micro-credit is to rely solely on savings generated within the community to fund loans. With that model, outside funding is unnecessary, making it easier for the Colombian administrators to continue without our help. Various models of communal banks are in existence throughout Colombia, including Cartagena and Santa Marta, and our other partners have expressed a keen interest in learning more.

The Colombia Project planned to meet with the Peace Corps country director in Barranquilla in May of this year to explore the possibility of Peace Corps Volunteers assisting with the sustainability initiative, but the visit was cancelled due to scheduling confl icts. Hopefully, another opportunity will arise. In the meantime, we are exploring other possibilities for oversight and sustainability within Colombia and are truly grateful for the invaluable support of Friends of Colombia and its individual members, which make this program possible. For more information, visit www.Colombiaproject.org and visit The Colombia Project FACeBOOK Page to see photo reports.