How to help poor people?

I am grateful for technology which allows me to attend interesting lectures all over the world without leaving Puebla. As I listened to Esther Duflo´s speech about the role of evidence in the fight against poverty, I reflected on BCDF´s work in San Andrés Azumiatla. As the featured speaker of Center for Global Development's sixth annual Richard H. Sabot Lecture, Esther Duflo shared her latest research on new aspects of the behavior of poor people, their needs, and the way that aid or financial investment can affect their lives.

Esther Duflo is a leading development economist known for her work applying impact evaluation, randomized controlled trials and other field experiments to identify which development interventions actually work. Duflo is the Abdul Latif Jameel Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-founder of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL).

Esther shared that many development interventions fail because they do not address the real needs of the people. One of the lessons that I learned during BCDF´s business training in Azumiatla is that while small business owners need business training, other needs emerged that I had never considered. Our business training class had mostly women business owners who have to juggle domestic duties and managing their small businesses. One such need is psychological support for women who are often times victims of domestic violence and suffer from depression. This mental state affects how they communicate with their family members and how much energy they put into their businesses. The women in our training session felt completely on their own in overcoming obstacles and lacked a support structure necessary to make their businesses grow. Since all of the small businesses in Azumiatla are family owned, improving family relations is critical in order to help their businesses grow. I would have never discovered the need for support groups for women had I not spent significant amount of time in the community. Social development interventions that are designed from an office will never succeed since they will not address the subtle obstacles that poor people face.

Esther also talked about good politics being a precursor to good policy. I believe this rings true in Mexico. While a conditional cash transfer program is a good policy to incentivize poor people`s investment in education and health, without good politics the program´s impact will be diminished. In spite of some efforts to avoid political manipulation of this program, poor people enrolled in the program have been manipulated during electoral seasons. Good politics are indispensable for real social development. How can it be that Mexico invests more money into education than an average OCDE country and yet has some of the worst results on education indicators?

BCDF attends Caja Depac´s General Assembly

BCDF is very proud to collaborate with Caja Depac Poblana, a credit and savings cooperative offering integral financial services to poor people in the state of Puebla. I had the privilege to attend Caja Depac´s General Assembly which allows members to participate directly and actively in making the important decisions about the services that the savings cooperative offers. I felt inspired by how passionate Caja Depac´s members are about the savings cooperative since they dedicate time and effort to serve on committees, analyze pertinent information and make informed decisions. They are not merely loan borrowers. They are dedicated cooperative members: an institution that represents their interests and strives to ensure their success.

Jesus Ortiz, Caja Depac´s general director, informed in his annual report that 2010 was one of the most difficult for the cooperative due to the economic crisis as well as the crisis of confidence in savings cooperatives due to a few major frauds that occurred that year. In spite of these challenges, Caja Depac presented its case to be certified by the National Commission on Bank and Values, the highest governmental institution that regulates the financial sector. Once Caja Depac becomes approved by this Commission, the members´ savings will be protected by the government. Caja Depac will become the only savings cooperative in the state of Puebla to be certified by this commission.

BCDF is very proud to collaborate with Caja Depac for the following reasons:

• Caja Depac empowers its members to be active users of financial services, providing complete and accurate financial information so that they can make informed decisions
• Caja Depac promotes citizen participation by engaging members in democratc governance processes, which is very unique and necessary in a country where civic participation is usually limited to participating in a local church or donating once year to the needy
• Caja Depac offers integral financial services to poor people that are aimed at empowering them so that they do not become passive consumers of debt

Our business training strategy in Azumiatla would not be possible without the commitment of Caja Depac´s staff, in the corporate headquarters as well as the Azumiatla branch.

BCDF promotes community involvement in Human Rights Workshop for youth in Azumiatla

This month BCDF hosted a Human Rights Workshop for youth in Azumiatla in order to instill basic values of human rights as stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In the context of our current economic system where worker`s human rights are constantly violated, whether through meager wages, overtime hours without pay or unbearable working conditions, it is critical to raise a generation of entrepreneurs with a solid foundation in human rights.

The workshop was facilitated by law students from the Popular Autonomous University of Puebla (UPAEP) that form part of Active and Voluntary Students Community. The four day workshop that took place on January 21, 22, 28 and 29^th engages youth to think about their inalienable rights and the obligations that come with these rights. One of the main points of the workshop is to reflect on the obligation they have to participate actively in their communities, being a force for good in the society. The workshop covered topics such as human dignity, value of human life, freedom, law and justice, social and economic rights, and community involvement. The workshop was attended by over 20 young people ages ranging from ten to nineteen years of age. These young people actively engaged in activities such as role plays, poster drawing contests and puzzle solving.

The end of the workshop will be culminated by a day of community service, painting a mural in one of the public spaces in the community. Join us on saturday February 5th to renovate Azumiatla!

BCDF hosts its first Business Roundtable Discussion for young people in San Andrés Azumiatla

On January 11, 2011 BCDF and Endeavor Puebla co-sponsored a Business Roundtable Discussion for young people in Azumiatla. Business Roundtable Discussions are held on the second Tuesday of every month in Azumiatla with the goal of inspiring young people to turn their entrepreneurial dreams into reality by learning from experiences of established business people in Puebla. BCDF partnered with Endeavor, a global nonprofit that transforms emerging countries by supporting high-impact entrepreneurs, to identify business people who are not only financially successful but also deeply committed to Mexico`s social development.

BCDF`s first Business Roundtable Discussion hosted Josué Bereshit, the General Director of Soyamigo, a company that sells diverse soy products, who shared his experience in marketing health products in Mexico, a country that has one of the highest obesity rates in the world. Around twenty two young people engaged the speaker with tough questions and personal reflections. Jorge, a fourteen young man, asked Josué about how he overcame the moment when his company was about to disintegrate due to lack of liquidity. Fausta, a seventeen year old young woman, probed Josué about the different marketing strategies his company uses to dispel the myths that people have about soy products. At the end of the session, youth shared their own dreams about starting their own businesses. Whether opening a mechanic shop, publicity agency or a chain of restaurants, youth emphasized how they want to uplift their communities, starting innovative businesses and creating employment for community members.

The next Business Roundtable discussion will take place on Tuesday February 8, 2011, hosting Roberto Quintero, the General Director of Cinemagic, a low-cost movie theater company dedicated to generating economic development in rural communities.

Women`s Health Center

BCDF and the Center for Regional Development at the Autonomous Popular University of the state of Puebla (UPAEP) are collaborating in order to build a Women`s Health Center in La Preciosita, a community located in the municipality of Santa Rita Tlahuapan. The goal of the Women`s Health Center is to catalyze the community to work together to ensure access to timely basic medical attention and education on disease prevention. The medical attention will consist of primary physician as well as specialists such as dentists, gynecologists, ophthalmologist, among others. Some of the topics for education services include nutrition, food preparation, organic farming, disease prevention, domestic violence and hygiene habits.

Monitoring: BCDF will monitor to ensure the community`s involvement in the construction process as well as administration of the center. We will get constant feedback from community members to ensure that they feel engaged in the entire process and are involved in critical decision making processes such as the types of medical services and educational courses offered.

Evaluation: BCDF will design an evaluation system that measures certain characteristics prior to the construction of Women`s Health Center and then after the center has been operating between one and two years.

In the short term we will measure the following results indicators:

ü Number of people attended by the Center

ü Timely access to medical attention

ü Knowledge of specific topics such as nutrition, disease prevention, etc

In the long term, we will measure the following outcome indicators:

ü Number of deaths prevented

ü Number of disabilities prevented

ü Frequency of illnesses in the community

Business training strategy

Strategy 1: Integral business training strategy

BCDF is launching an integral business training strategy in San Andrés Azumiatla, a marginalized area of the city of Puebla. BCDF is collaborating with a saving cooperative, Caja Depac Pobalna, in order to target the cooperative members who take out small loans through the cooperative. Caja Depac Poblana provides access to an array of financial services in rural marginalized communities. In this partnership, Caja Depac Poblana provides BCDF access to its members in order to detect their business skill needs, offers critical input to ensure relevance of the training, and lends BCDF its space to carry out the training sessions and coaching. BCDF and Caja Depac Poblana aim to replicate this training strategy in other marginalized communities where the savings cooperative has branches.

The main goal of the business training strategy is to strengthen the capacities of micro business owners to run and manage profitable and sustainable businesses. We believe that profitable businesses will generate economic development not only for the business owners but for the larger community through job creation. The training consists of two stages: first stage is a 50 hour class that provides basic business skills such as marketing, sales, management and accounting and the second stage is personalized business coaching to different business clusters in order to apply the skills learned in the class. We will work closely with the savings cooperative to facilitate access to credit for these businesses to grow as well as facilitate access to additional government resources available for low income business owners.

Our theory of change is that by focusing on the capacities of the business owners, we will catalyze more profitable businesses which in turn will have positive impact on the community.

Monitoring: We will monitor the participants` satisfaction with the training through constant feedback on its relevance and applicability in their businesses in order to make necessary changes in real time.

Evaluation: How will we know if we have made any impact? We are currently exploring different diagnostic formats to apply to all of the businesses that participate in our training sessions. We will apply this diagnostic prior to enrollment in the training sessions and six months to one year after the training is over. The business diagnostic will rate the business on the following aspects: management, accounting, suppliers, product quality, customer satisfaction, corporate governance, and human resources. In order to measure the impact of business strategy on the larger community, we will also document the business ‘annual revenue and number of people employed before and after the training. As businesses are more profitable, the owners will spend more money within the community and therefore generate impact on a community level. Job creation allows community members to improve their standard of living.

What does 2011 hold in store for BCDF?

We are excited to welcome 2011. It promises to be an exciting year full of challenging opportunities and meaningful service work. After six months of planning, BCDF is armed with a clear direction and an action plan to fulfill our mission and work towards realizing our vision. We aim to contribute to the breaking of cycle of poverty through integral community development: catalyzing economic development, improving community infrastructure and investing in people`s individual and collective capacities.

Our first challenge this year is to design a monitoring and evaluation system for our two main projects: construction of women`s health center in La Preciosita and integral business training strategy in Azumiatla.

What are monitoring and evaluation and why are they important?

Source: http://www.toolkitsportdevelopment.org

Monitoring is the collection, analysis and use of information from projects in order to learn from the experiences acquired, to account for resources used and results obtained and to make decisions regarding the future of the project.

Evaluation is the assessment of an ongoing or completed project in order to decide their relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability.

Monitoring and evaluation must be done systematically and objectively in order to provide relevant information necessary for decision making.

BCDF is committed to measuring its effectiveness not by the amount of resources invested into a project but by the impact of the results obtained.