by Betty Pelton Morrow
Prior to 1995, when I first met Dr. Muhammad Yunus while attending a RESULTS
International conference, a Central American Concerns group at All Souls had
been trying to do good deeds in Central America by gathering goods such as
typewriters, sewing machines, etc., for Pastors for Peace as well as the
Unitarian Universalist Sservice Committee (UUSC), and also had made a medical
mission trip with some United Methodists. When I met Dr. Yunus and learned of
micro-credit for the first time, I saw immediately that offering women an
opportunity to help themselves out of poverty was a much more efficient way of
really helping than were medical missions.
By the time I returned with the micro-credit news,
the group had already scheduled another medical mission trip but planned to take
one day of the trip to visit a group of women who belonged to a group financed
by FINCA, Foundation for International Community Assistance. Our Tulsa group was comprised
of Rev. Brent Smith, Becky Billings, Dr. Doug Mitchell, a Tahlequah Unitarian,
my husband, Gay Morrow and me. We served as volunteers on a Methodist Volunteers
in Action trip. We all knew immediately that this is what we should be doing,
this thing called micro-credit lending which was so new to all of
us.
We found out that FINCA had already thoroughly
established itself in Central America, so we
made contact to find out how much money was involved. At that time it was
$10,000 over a period of three years. I went to the All Souls board to ask
permission to raise that amount of money. It was
granted.
Our first fund-raiser was a large Fiesta Hispanica in
April 1996, during which we sold Guatemalan goods and had lots of entertainment
and food. I believe we netted about $2,600. An anonymous donation of $3,000 made
the first bank possible. FINCA had just changed the amount to $5,000 per
bank.
I believe the thing which made our church’s enviable
success in funding micro-credit banks was our organizing trips of 13 to 16
people, who, at their own expense, made one-week trips to visit the women who
had received loans from the money we had forwarded to FINCA. Those who took the
trips were changed forever by the possibilities the banking program afforded
women in developing countries. Just a decade after the first bank was funded,
persons at All Souls have now financed 30 banks – at $5,000 apiece – in
Nicaragua, Guatemala, Mexico and Haiti.
Each bank serves 28 to 30 women, but recently smaller groups of eight or nine
have been helped.
Our activity has created interest all over the
United
States. Jacque Tomsovic, who has led All Souls’
Village Banking group for several years, gives speeches to local groups and
leads trips, while I do outreach all over the United States
through e-mail and telephone and many times through trips to speak to other
congregations or make a presentation at General Assembly. At least five UU
congregations have financed 12 banks based on this help. In 2008 I carried my
message to Unitarians in Canada and to All Souls in a sermon
on Heritage Sunday.
Jacque stated the case for micro-banking emphatically,”
We’ve [All Souls]started more banks than any other church in the world.” And,
she added, “It is the one thing you can throw money at and be 100% confident
that the money will go directly to the people
involved.”
Examples of how
this works, and how it has worked well . .
.
Managua, Nicaragua, San Luis Sur Barrio – We were
visiting a borrower's home, site of the weekly meeting to collect payments on
the loans to this group, named “Tres de Octubre.” On this occasion, it was the
home of Carmela, treasurer of the group for this lending cycle. The floor was
concrete, though many of these women have dirt floors. They expected to show
us what they were each doing with their loans, so chairs were put around the
room (some probably borrowed from other women). Carmela was eager to tell us
about her business, cutting men’s hair. She knew how to properly cut hair but
had never been able to afford the quality haircutting equipment which would turn
her talent into a profitable business. She gave a demonstration on one of the
men in our group. He was very pleased and she was very proud that she could now
have lots of pleased customers to raise her income and educate her three
children. Another women sold food. She passed around a tray of sweet breads and
we knew immediately that she would now be able to sell right in her own
neighborhood without borrowing money for ingredients from a money lender who
charged high interest.
Villanueva, Guatemala, in a poor barrio market – Most
of the sellers in the market were women, but nearly all the goods they sold
belonged to someone else and their income was too small to be able to have a
business of their own. We met Rosita, who was selling fish. She said the women
in her family had sold fish for generations. However, the profit went to the
person who owned the fish. She was really experienced, having learned at her
mother’s knee. When she heard of the micro-banking group, she applied. She took
her first loan and bought from the men who sold the fish at the lake,
eliminating the middleman. The first day she was able to make a profit. This
first loan inspired her. Now her two children will never have to sell fish for a
living. They can go to school and get a better job. And she plans to have a
different business than selling fish, which is risky at best because of
spoilage.
A village somewhere in Mexico south of Cuernavaca – Conchita was having a really
difficult time feeding her five children using her sewing ability, as she sewed
by hand and had to buy fabric from a “coyote” in the marketplace at a high
interest rate. She heard about group loans to poor women, which some of her
friends had received, and after joining a group took out her first loan of $100
to buy a used sewing machine and some fabric. Instead of one dress per week to
sell at the market, she sold 25. After several loans she hired other women and
bought another machine. I would say she was on her
way.
Editor’s Note: Scott Swearingen adds, “A book on
micro-credit, A Billion
Bootstraps by Phil Smith and Eric Thurman, makes the case for
investing in micro-credit as cost-effect philanthropy. It would be a good read
for those of us who advocate more small loans to the poorest. In Tulsa, we are especially
proud of the special section One Committed
Person on page 138 on the groundbreaking work of Betty Morrow.” It
describes how Betty took her passion for micro-credit and led All Souls to this
leadership role.