Progress in Esparta, Honduras
Alexandra Fournier
October 24, 2011

As part of our plan for October, Shannon and I spent this past week in CAUSE’s new programming region: Esparta. After spending the majority of our internship in Iriona, where the Women’s Intergral Empowerment Program (WIEP) has been established for the past 4 years, we were very excited to spend some time getting to know the communities in Esparta, to show our support for the local women, and to see how the program has progressed since our last visit in April.

On our first day in Esparta I went with Elvis, the Business Development promoter, to his class in La Rosita. I remember this community because it was the very first one I visited in April. During that first visit I remember the women being very quiet, timid and a bit hesitant to participate in class. What surprised me as well was that the class seemed to be divided into 2 groups: all the Garifuna women were sitting on one side of the room, and all the Ladino women on the other. However, when I returned this week it was as though I had stepped into a completely different classroom. The women were cheerful and talkative as they arrived. Throughout Elvis’ class they were extremely participative and confidently shared their opinions. Elvis separated the women into small groups to work on a few exercises. The first was to pick a business (my group’s was cake baking) and write down all the necessary costs (i.e. ingredients) to determine the total cost of production for their product. The next step was to select a price for their product (each piece of cake) and then calculate how much profit they will gain. The mixed groups all worked well together as a team to calculate their costs and supported one another when they had questions. I was really happy to see how enthusiastic they were to participate in class, to practice their business management skills and to support one another. All the women I talked to spoke of how happy they were for this opportunity to learn.

At the end of class Elvis asked the women to divide into their solidarity groups and he distributed each group’s microcredit loan contract. The group I was working with would be receiving their second loan renewal (After only starting classes in February!) And what’s more, all the solidarity groups included both Garifuna and Ladino women. Since women chose their own groups, I was very happy to see this.

The next day I accompanied Xiomara, the Leadership promoter, to a community called Nueva Go to get a sense of the Leadership program in Esparta. The first class activity was to complete their savings contracts.  As part of the Leadership program, each woman is encouraged to save a sum of money each week, which CAUSE records, and then at the end of the course CAUSE will match their savings with a donation based on their attendance and participation throughout the year. This contract includes each woman’s commitment to using her savings match. One woman, Maria Reina, was struggling to understand her form since she had never completed primary school, and so we worked together to write down the list of clothes she will buy with her savings, which she will sell in her clothing store in Nueva Go.

At the end of both classes I conducted interviews with several women, all of whom were grateful for the opportunities the WIEP had offered them. Glenda from La Rosita, said she never thought she’d be able to attend both the Leadership and Business Development classes with her busy schedule and 5 kids, but she says that from this opportunity she has learned to efficiently manage her time. Bacilia from Nueva Go never completed her primary education and is extremely grateful for this second opportunity to learn, which she says benefits not only herself but her family as well. Today Bacilia is using her microcredit loans to expand her family’s dairy business to sell a variety of dairy products instead of only milk.

To put things into perspective, the WIEP began in February 2011 in the Esparta region, and these are only a few stories of the many women whose lives have already changed for the better because of it. Their happiness, confidence and hard-work will inspire others in their communities to do the same in the years to come.