Microcredit at work in Talagante, Chile

February 2010

We often wonder, how funds provided towards international projects are used and how they have benefited the community. In 2004, the Rotary Club of Spruce Grove, Alberta, Canada provided money towards a new Microcredit project, for the poor in the community of Talagante, Chile.

During our visit Talagante several weeks ago, Uve Fuchs, the Microcredit Project Liaison for the Rotary Club of Talagante takes us to the house of Eliana Arangiz, where she shows us a variety of handcrafted items made by members of the BanIgualdad group of which she and and 18 other women are members.

BanIgualdad (Equality Bank) is a private bank which provide small loans to women to help them get started in their own business. The woman are trained in various areas of business, such as marketing and promotion, bookkeeping, personal growth and more. They are all accountable for each other to ensure the loans are paid back and on time.

The women meet once a week at Eliana’s house, to discuss business issues and other opportunities to be more successful in their business. The women speak mainly Mapudungin; the language of the Mapuche Indians in Chile.

Eliana is a born leader, a women who is strong, intelligent and talented. She has a real sense of business.
After grade six she enrolled in technical school were she learned how to sew  and wanted to use that skill to earn some money to support her family. She was one of the first members of the group. With her loan she was able to buy her first sewing machine and now, after five years she has grown her business to three machines and also teaches others how to sew.
Without her, this group may not have been as successful. Eliana coordinates the weekly meetings and the purchase of most of the supplies the women use for their crafts, whether it is paper for the hand embroidered cards, thread or yarn for crochet, sewing  or embroidery, or material for dresses and other crafts, which they buy at the lowest possible price in Santiago.

As Eliana displays items members of her group have made, she explains
how some of the items involved the work of three different women all specializing in a different craft; crochet, embroidery or sewing.

Five years ago, Eliana together with Rosa Lara, a widow, and four other women started a bakery, to earn some seed money to start their own individual business. Rosa now runs a small corner store in front of her one room house, where she sells candy, eggs, toiletries and other convenience items. Her business is open seven days a week from ten in the morning until 11 pm or even  midnight if needed. Leaving her little time for herself.

She is very proud of her business and keeps her store tidy and clean.
With her latest loan, she was able to buy a cooler for soft drinks, and perishable items.
With the money she earns from her business and a Government grant she is now able to have a small addition built to her house.

Both women express their gratitude to the Rotary Club of Talagante and the Rotary Club of Spruce Grove, who have provided funds to start the Microcredit bank in Talagante.

Both cases are evidence of how Microcredit works and how it can end poverty, one loan at a time.