So this week upon returning from Costa Rica, I did not go into the field like I thought I was going to. But I did do two things which I have never done before.
I painted FAPE’s office. Okay, so I have painted before, but never an office. FAPE’s office had not been painted in 20 years. How many places where you work have not been painted in 20 years? How many places where you work, do you have to paint it yourself? With everyone working, that took all day, and we were still not finished. But man, painting is hard work. This is what my face looked like. It was a fun bonding experience for all involved.
The second thing of note that I did was translate a legal agreement from English to Spanish. Yeah, I needed to figure out how to describe “unto” in spanish and other such technical jargon. The agreement was between an orgaization called Gems of Hope. They are an organization that focuses on providing health services and education to women in microfinance. The Canadian government has decided to give them 514,000 Canadian dollars for a three-year project with FAPE. They will integrate health services into FAPE’s already existing microcredit institution. That’s pretty cool. Not only does it help FAPE’s entrepreneurs with health care and health prevention, but it also gives FAPE a competitive advantage in the microcredit world. Not many other microfinance institutions can offer health services along with their loan. I’d love to see how this progresses over three years. It should be super interesting and super cool. As I said with the Namaste post, FAPE is working with some pretty cool partners, and doing three things I believe are necessary to alleviate poverty: Increase income, free education, and free health care. Now they won’t alleviate poverty in all of Guatemala, but I bet they make a huge difference with their entrepreneurs.
