Making coffee is not a part of every internship. Finance senior Diego Rios and finance and economics senior Robert Swanton learned that after working for the Grameen Bank and Association of Social Advancement in Bangladesh this summer.
“We were going around on the backs of motorcycles on little dirt roads to little tin shacks to meet with borrowers,” Swanton said.
Rios and Swanton interned to learn more about microfinance in order to aid development of a microfinance program at Loyola University. Swanton said he and Rios performed financial analysis at the Association of Social Advancement and Grameen Bank headquarters in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and traveled to different Bangladesh villages to do fieldwork – meeting borrowers, distributing loans and visiting those having difficulty repaying loans.
“I think we were more involved in learning and structuring how to operate the microfinance institution here in New Orleans,” Rios said.
Loyola alumni Elliot Sanchez, A’08, Aaron Kirsh, A’08 and Nicole Kone, A’08, concocted the original proposal for a student-run microfinance program at Loyola University and received a $5,000 grant from the Bill Clinton Foundation. Loyola’s Student Government Association committed to a $5,000 contribution per semester for the next three or four semesters, Swanton said. According to Rios, he discovered about a week ago that they received another grant worth $2,000 from the Bill Clinton Foundation.
Swanton said financially strained post-Katrina residents need access to loans to run their businesses. Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank and winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, distributed small loans, or microloans, to low-income individuals, mainly women, in Bangladesh for materials for making clothing. According to “Grameen Bank Banking for the Poor” Web site, Grameen Bank provided aid to 100 million families all around the world over the past 30 years.
“The idea is to have a full service shop for people that are on the lower level of the income bracket in New Orleans, so they can come to us and apply for loans with a business idea,” Swanton said. Loyola students, learned in relevant subjects, provide counseling to investors needing advising in different aspects of their business, Rios said .
“I think the most interesting part about it is that it is not like other non-government organizations where people are constantly financing and putting money in, but they created a system where the non-government organizations sustain themselves financially,” Rios said, referring to microfinancing institutions. Rios said he and Swanton realized they had to restructure the original model for the organization after becoming involved in the program’s development.
“We have not yet received final approval from Loyola as to whether or not this is going to be sponsored by them as a campus organization, and I think that the student government funding commitment is contingent on it being a campus organization,” Swanton said.
He said if Loyola fails to approve the microfinance program, they can take steps to incorporate independently, getting financial support from other organizations. “We would really like to do it with Loyola because we want to, sort of, add to the opportunity students can have at Loyola and the interesting programs that are on campus,” Swanton said.
Allison Sickle can be reached at [email protected].
