Posts Tagged ‘microcredit’
Elvira Sanchez Toscano helped to found Institute for Overcoming Urban Poverty (ISMU) – an IDEX partner in Guatemala – over a decade ago together with community groups in the urban shantytowns of Guatemala City. Through ISMU, Elvira has helped develop housing improvement projects, youth leadership and women’s empowerment programs, educational scholarships as well as participating in a regional movement on climate change.
In July, Elvira came to the United States to present the work of ISMU at the International Human Rights Funders Conference in New York and meet with ally organizations in New York, Washington D.C. and Seattle. IDEX Program Manager Katherine Zavala conducted this interview with Elvira below.
IDEX Program Officer, Katherine Zavala, recently traveled to Mexico to spend time in the field with our grantees there.
I met up with Javier and Jose, staff of EduPaz, in Comitan, Chiapas to visit community groups who are participating in EduPaz’s Economic Solidarity (Microcredit) Program. I got into EduPaz’s car, a traditional Mexican red bug, (VW Beetle) and rode 90 minutes through stunning green mountains to a community called Amparo Agua Tinta.
Amparo Agua Tinta is home to 700 families, approximately 3500 people. The area offers few job opportunities and EduPaz estimates 25% of the men have migrated to other cities in Mexico, such as Cancun, and also across the border to the United States. Those who stay grow maize and beans and raise cattle. EduPaz is the only non-profit organization working in this community.
Amparo Agua Tinta has a painful history. It was a community that was part of the autonomous municipality of Tierra y Libertad (Land and Freedom), which was dismantled by the paramilitaries in 1998. Many people were injured, threatened and some were tortured.
Families are still traumatized by this experience and find it hard to trust people, including their fellow neighbors. To build trust, a key part of EduPaz’s work has been to mediate between community members to bring reconciliation back in Amparo Agua Tinta.
One way that EduPaz does this is to encourage people who want to apply for a microcredit loan from EduPaz to do so as part of a community group, rather than as an individual. Currently, EduPaz works with 3 community groups. One of them is a 8 women-member cooperative of a grocery store within the community called “One Hope Ahead” that initiated this year.
Leonol Vazquez Mirano is part of the “One Hope Ahead” group. She is 53 years old and has 3 daughters. Together they discussed the idea of starting their own family grocery store. Leonol already had been part of a community group and had worked with Edupaz. The group had sold second-hand clothes. This experience taught Leonol about responsibility, coordination and consensus building, and inspired her to take on a new group project of a grocery store. In its first 6 months, the store is going strong and the cooperative is generating 500 to 600 pesos ($38 to $46) a day. The cooperative members are also taking the opportunity to start saving their own money by each contributing 30 pesos ($2.30) each month.
The other 2 groups are formed by members who are doing individual income-generating projects but meet once a month to share experiences on how their projects are advancing. Most of them are raising livestock (pigs, sheep or chickens).
Raul Sanchez Lopez invested his microcredit in a roadside store. His store is well situated and attracts both drivers passing through the town and neighbors. He’s done so well he decided to invest a small part of his microcredit in raising egg-laying hens as an experiment. He soon hopes to sell fresh eggs at his roadside store.
It was wonderful to meet these community members and learn more about their different projects.
IDEX Program Officer, Katherine Zavala (pictured 2nd on the right), is currently in Mexico on field visits to our grantees there.
Today I went to Comitán de Dominguez, where our partner EduPaz is based. Comitán is 90 minutes south of San Cristóbal de las Casas on the way to the Guatemalan border. EduPaz had planned to take me on a community visit to Tziscao –but first, a much-needed stop at their office for pastries and coffee.
To enter their office, I had to pass through their fair trade store called EcoPaz (Economy for Peace), which was opened to sell products made by the community groups and collectives that received microcredit from EduPaz.
This season, it was interesting to see a beekeeping collective is producing lots of honey and there was plenty of honey on sale.
During breakfast, the 3 full-time EduPaz staff introduced themselves and got me up to speed on the community we were going to visit. And so headed off to Tziscao, a community of around 6,000 people, located an hour from Comitán.
In Tziscao, EduPaz has built a health center which now has a doctor to serve the surrounding communities. Soon there will be 5 alternative medicine interns from the School of Alternative Medicine in Tuxtla Gutierrez on site to provide holistic health services, which is great since this area is really underserved in regards to medical care.
About 15 to 20 community members go to the Tziscao health center each week. There’s only 1 other hospital in the area, but it is limited in it services and just has 1 doctor and 1 nurse. Plus the only supplies they have are of anti-parasite medicine and contraceptives. The EduPaz health center is a much-needed resource and also serves as a meeting space for farmers or cooperative members in Tziscao.
An indigenous couple is currently living on site to take care of the health center: Baldemar and his wife Eloisa. They moved into the center 3 months ago and Baldemar is also currently being trained on how to run the agroecology program at the center.
EduPaz is also in the process of constructing an Agroecology Training Site. They already have started growing organic vegetables – including squash, radishes, peanuts, chayote, chipilin (herbs for broths) and green tomatoes. While I was there, Baldemar showed me where they’re planning to build a chicken coup, and a space for farm animals including rabbits and sheep, as well as fruit trees (avocado, lemon, apple, pear and banana plants) AND a greenhouse to grow tomatoes. It was quite impressive.
They’ve already built a pigsty and a space for a biodigestor. The biodigestor will use the pig manure to create natural gas to produce energy for the center. They will install the biodigestor in August, at the same time IRRI-Mexico, an IDEX catalyst grantee in Mexico City, will train Baldemar and other community members from Tziscao on how to install and maintain this technology. The goal is to encourage them to also use this in their own homes.
I also visited 2 community groups in Tziscao: an organic coffee cooperative and a family grocery store collective. Both have received microcredit loans from EduPaz. They shared how helpful it was to access microcredit through EduPaz and how much better it was than going through a bank which requires a lot of complicated paperwork and restrictive lending terms. Plus the banks only loan large sums of money, which is not necessary for these groups’ projects.
All in all, it was incredibly rewarding to learn more about EduPaz’s work and meet some of the people that are benefiting from their programs and working so hard to continue that they are successful.
On Tuesday, March 31, we took a small jet plane to fly to Zinguinchor – the largest town in southern Senegal. From here we will travel to community-based organizations in Casamance.
It was only a 50-minute flight but when we landed in Zinguinchor we sensed immediately that we were in a tropical, rural area. The humidity hit us as soon as we left the plane. Seynabou, the director of USOFORAL, an organization that we’re meeting with, came to welcome us at the airport. It just so happened that we had also flown with a couple of members of USOFORAL on the same plane.
Once we settled in into our new lodging we were ready to go visit the first organization in Casamance, AJAEDO (Association of Young Farmers and Animal Breeders in the Oussouye Division of Casamance).
We drove for an hour into Casamance-Basse. This is a region that has suffered from many years of conflict waged over independence for Casamance. As with many conflicts between government and rebellion forces, those who suffer the most are civilians. On our drive to Oussouye, where AJAEDO is based, we were told about how these same roads were quite dangerous at one point and car hijackings were the norm. Nowadays, the region is stable and displaced community members are beginning to return to Casamance, which happens to be the richest in natural resources.
When we arrived we met with Paul Emmanuel. Paul is the Coordinator of Programs at AJAEDO and he told us a bit about AJAEDO and its work.
AJAEDO works with 392 members represent community groups. There are 21 groups in total, 12 women groups and 9 male groups. Each group has a representative that sits on AJAEDO Board. As a result the women hold the majority on this Board.
AJAEDO provides skills-building and technical assistance to women in agriculture, sewing, soap making and pottery. Three years ago they introduced a microcredit program. Since then they have had good results as the women are now able to access financial support. Many of them have taken at least two microcredit loans since the launch of the program.
AJAEDO is an organization that is regularly monitoring and evaluating their activities. Every 15 days the coordinator sits down with the supervisors and group promoters to create an action plan. At the end of the 15 days they then evaluate what they carried out and see if they followed their plan or not. AJAEDO also accompanies the groups to see where the priority needs are and facilitate discussions for community members to find solutions to problems. Once they’ve identified the solution, the coordinator in turn helps them find financial support for them.
AJAEDO showed us round their office, which includes a conference room, dormitories, a small vegetable garden and an extra room that serves as the base for a community radio, which promotes a dialogue among the multiple ethnic groups in Casamance. Right next to the radio office AJAEDO has a space that they hope to convert into an IT Center to Internet access to community members.
There were several young men hanging out at the community radio station and I asked them why weren’t they talking on the radio. “Our electricity has been cut off,” they answered. We took the opportunity to talk with them about their music that includes hip-hop, and mbalanx. The men demonstrated by dancing and singing their favorite songs. We didn’t think it was necessary to return the favor.
Paul, the coordinator, told us a bit about himself during the tour of the office. He comes from Casamance and lived in this area until he moved to Dakar for his university studies. He has now returned to Casamance and wants to support his fellow community members in improving their livelihoods. His hope for Casamance is that the region becomes what it was before the conflict started, a beautiful, peaceful environment where the society is non-hierarchical and all people are considered equal. Many people have come back to Casamance to revive this tropical land once again.
Photo: IDEX Program Officer, Katherine Zavala, with AJAEDO staff.
Patrociña’s community is one of 15 currently receiving support through APROSADSE’s Agroecology Program, which provides loans and training to groups and individuals for income-generating projects, such as livestock rearing. These are lucrative options for families with limited access to arable land. The program also promotes group savings and facilitates monthly technical assistance to each group.
At her neighbor’s urging Patrociña attended a meeting sponsored by APROSADSE. The more she learned, the more it became clear. If she took a loan to buy a cow the milk could both provide her 5 growing children with much needed nutrition. With the income from leftover milk she could send her children to school. And if you were to ask Patrociña about her dreams, she would be quick to tell you. What she wants most in life is to see her children go to school.
Few cars make it down to El Carmen, Patrociña’s tiny community of 30 families. There are no paved roads. Patrociña has a long and dusty walk to market in San Martín Jilotepeque. Even there staples like eggs and milk and fresh produce are often too expensive. Her family lives on a small, arid plot of land in a 2-room house, the walls patched together with maize stalks and steel plates.
Patrociña never envisioned she would be able to support her family on her own. But through a combination of small loans and technical training in livestock rearing, she has discovered an innate sense for business.
In her group meetings, Patrociña is always the first to speak up; ready to share how she is maximizing her original investment. First, she sold her original cow. With the proceeds, she paid back her loan and bought another cow. She was able to sell that cow and buy a bull, which she calculated would yield an even higher profit at market.
Her children are growing strong on the milk they have to drink. Plus her cow is also providing enough milk she can sell it to neighboring families. And, as she will proudly tell you, she can now afford to purchase uniforms, school supplies and pay for tuition for her 3 eldest school-age children.
Patrociña is not content to stop there. Her entrepreneurial spirit has encouraged her to expand her micro enterprise by making cheese. She has also begun to use organic and free fertilizer (from her cows) for her two plots of the local chayote squash. In a short time, she has watched her income grow from zero into a steady stream.
Though her new life is busier than ever, Patrociña finds time to attend health-training workshops at APROSADSE’s main office and returns motivated to extend her newfound tips in nutrition and family health to the rest of the women in her community.
Give to support women like Patrociña on GlobalGiving through March 27, 2009 and your donation will be matched.
Photo credit: Marlon García
“Global microfinance leaders met Wednesday in San Francisco to discuss a cutting-edge strategy to get the world’s poorest borrowers to repay their loans: Keep them healthy.” Read the full article.
IDEX can’t agree more. It’s refreshing to see the experts catching on to what we’ve known for years: microfinance is not a cure-all for poverty. The best anti-poverty organizations apply microfinance as just one tool in a multilayered approach. The real key is in funding organizations that empower the poorest people with leadership skills so they can access not just capital but also information, health care, education, land rights and food security. IDEX’s role as a philanthropic organization is to find such organizations and help them grow.
If you would like to learn more about our approach to microfinance, please join Pete Stanga, IDEX’s Executive Director at UC Berkeley on Monday, November 3. Pete will be giving a brief lecture about IDEX and our approach to microcredit, followed by a question and answer session hosted by Paula Goldman.
The lecture will take place in Room 2060, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley from on Nov 3, 5:30-7:3-pm. Visit our website for more details.
After a restful Sunday walking around the beautiful colonial city of Antigua and falling in love again with traditional textiles shopping at the local market it was back to work on Monday.
I caught the bus near the local market that would take me to AFEDES, located in Santiago Sacatepéquez (45 minutes from Antigua). On the local buses in Guatemala, there is a driver and his assistant who collects the bus fare. I’m always surprised how fearless these assistants are because they stand right next to the front door, which is open, while the bus travels at 50 miles/hour. In my opinion the assistant is just asking to fall out.
Getting to Santiago takes two buses, a route that I’m very familiar with, as I was a volunteer with AFEDES in 2005. Already I can see changes in this city. There are shopping malls being built and the city feels bigger. My local doctor while I lived in Santiago is now the city’s mayor! The biggest change of all is AFEDES, which has expanded to a new building that has three floors and so many offices that I kept getting lost.
Last year, AFEDES went through a strategic planning phase and as a result, have redefined their mission, vision and values, and have even changed their name. They are now called “Alliance to Foment Equality and Development by the Women of Sacatepéquez.” Their acronym has remained AFEDES because it has already established credibility and value in the field.
2007 was an election year in Guatemala and AFEDES wanted to inform women about their right to vote and help them become more aware of the electoral process. This initiated AFEDES’ Advocacy program. Through this program AFEDES offered workshops on voting and the electoral process. They gave the workshops to 26 groups with an average attendance of 15 people. AFEDES also organized five workshops on leadership development focusing on activities that reflected on the political, social and economical context that rural women are living in today’s Guatemala.
In addition to the Advocacy Program, AFEDES is currently running three other programs: Economic Development, Health, and their newest program, Education and Training for Personal Development.
Microcredit falls under the Economic Development program. AFEDES works with 27 groups of women that offer microcredit. One of the results of strategic planning was the need for AFEDES to redefine its microcredit groups so as to better encourage women to work collectively and establish their own self-sustainability.
Last year, AFEDES was able to provide seed funding to 31 women who wanted to start a community store stocked with day-to-day items. This project was a first-time experiment to support women from different communities who wanted to be part of a collective microenterprise, independent of AFEDES. The store has had challenges; over half of the women have dropped out, leaving behind 15 women to run the store. Nevertheless within one year of opening, the store has already broke even.
As a result of the Economic Development program, AFEDES was able to give out 80 scholarship loans to students of primary, secondary education and vocational school education.
A new area AFEDES is beginning to explore is transitioning women farmers working in conventional farming to sustainable agriculture. AFEDES has already participated in visiting sustainable agriculture projects, supported by FUNDEBASE, in San Martín Jilotepéque to start putting together a plan that will gradually support this transition.
AFEDES’ Health Program has added an interesting focus. AFEDES carried out a needs assessment survey to identify what services were in demand from its health program. Unfortunately, there was high response from women suffering from domestic violence. The women requested AFEDES work with men, to help change their attitudes. AFEDES knew that organizing a meeting for men would be difficult, so instead they targeted the one place where they knew men will always go, church. Women who responded to the survey would say, “My husband will hit me and then he’ll go straight to church” or “My husband doesn’t show up for household chores, but will loyally go to church.” As a result, AFEDES is starting to build conversations with many fathers and priests in different communities to talk about this issue and are planning a religious/spiritual course with a woman’s perspective, as most rural women are faithful religious practitioners.
In addition, AFEDES is also becoming involved with reported sexual violence cases by providing resources and support to women victims. AFEDES staff accompanies the women victims to the police, justice hall and anywhere they need to go to pursue their case.
Their newest program, Education and Training for Personal Development is in its inaugural year. It offers more formal training to AFEDES staff, Board members, and group leaders. Planned themes for this training are women’s rights and cultural and ethnic identity, among others.
This year is marking a new chapter for AFEDES, where the goal is to stimulate women’s empowerment. It’s exciting to see where this will lead AFEDES and how this change will impact women in the communities of Sacatepéquez in the next few years.
Photo credit: Marlon Garcia
Last night I was so tired that I went to sleep really early, unfortunately I also had to wake up early, even though it was Saturday! This was my last day to visit communities with APROSADSE.
Our first visit was with a group called Women in Action (Mujeres de Acción) – who have been receiving microcredit loans from APROSADSE for quite some time now. On IDEX’s last trip to Guatemala, I had visited this group, and some of the women recognized me! I sat down to talk about their work and how they feel about their participation in the group.
Many of the women here are new members, but five of them have been in the group since the beginning. Most of them are working individually with chicken-raising projects. Talking with them, the women offered several comments about their projects and how grateful they are to be in a group where they can share their problems and accomplishments and have support from one another.
Maximiliana, who is 47 years old and married with nine children, explained her biggest challenge was finding affordable chicken feed. This echoed comments given by a group member from the community of Chi Armira. Berta, whose project is quite big as she has 1,000 chickens, says that she’s a bit worried now because some of her chickens seem to be getting ill and she needs to have a vet check them out.
Other stories were more positive like Maria Julia’s story. Maria Julia has had great success with her egg-laying hens and now sells eggs in her community. She was invited to join the group by her mother-in-law and now she is the vice-president of the group, even though she has only been with the group two years. Being vice-president has encouraged her to speak up more and see that she can be one of the leaders of the group. Like today for example. The president of the group was unable to be present because she was studying, this allowed Maria Julia to open the meeting and introduce the group members.
Maria Julia’s mother-in-law, Maria Elena, is one of the five women who started the group Women in Action. She’s also had success raising chickens and local varieties of turkey. During Christmas time she can sell her turkeys at a high price and earn a good income from those sales. As a result Maria Elena has bought a cow that is providing her family with milk. Ever resourceful she also uses the chicken’s waste to make organic fertilizers for her plot of agricultural land. I visited her at her home and on my way noticed the local primary school Los Pi ños Xesuj, also supported by APROSADSE, only through its education program.
After talking with the women, I said my thank you’s and good-bye’s and went on to my next visit.
I was driven on a long, unused road down to a small valley where I would meet Hector and the land where he cultivates his tomatoes, beans and corn. When I met Hector, he was approaching me with two boxes filled with tomatoes on his back, only supported by a cloth that was wrapped around his forehead.
I looked to see where Hector was coming from and was shocked. He had climbed up a narrow path along the edge of a cliff, where one false step could have lead to a horrible fall. Balance was hard enough to maintain with my own purple purse – can you imagine with two boxes of tomatoes tied to your head?
Hector showed me how he is transitioning to organic farming as he learned that it is both cheaper and more sustainable in the long run. He said to me,
“APROSADSE has been the one to show and teach me about organic agriculture and they’ve supported me with my first microcredit to invest in this project. I’m working hard to achieve my dream of having my own land to be able to support my family well and pay the education of my children. I also want to help contribute to community projects such as the school. I believe that we should support our community in any small way, because that is how we can improve our living situation.”
There is a river that runs by his land and as a result, Hector has free access to water that helps to reduce his farming costs. I needed to cross the river to see his other land. Fortunately, the river was low since it is the dry season. I remembered the river scene from Into the Wild and I thought to myself, “I hope I can cross back.” If I couldn’t, then I guess I wouldn’t have minded. The place was beautiful, surrounded by tall, green pine trees and dappled sunlight. Some of the pine trees had been carefully trimmed in order to allow sunlight to shine through to the land. Combined with the music of the river flowing by, it created a peaceful world away from the buses and typical urban noise.
It was a good way to end my field visits with APROSADSE.
Photo credit: Marlon Garcia
Today I had my last site visit of my trip and for that I had to travel one-hour south to Comitan. Comitan is where the organization Educación por la Paz (Education for Peace) more often called EduPaz was founded ten years ago, focusing primarily on supporting Guatemalan refugees in Chiapas. Now EduPaz has evolved to an organization that focuses mainly on 2 areas: health and economic development though microcredit.
EduPaz’s health program is focused on mental health as they felt that the issue of addressing people’s traumas after having lived through a conflict was missing in many indigenous communities. Maria Elena, the director of EduPaz’s health program, studied Gestalt therapy when she was in Argentina years ago and now has shared her knowledge with other community members to provide a space for families who need more psychological support.
Jose, an indigenous man who comes from a community that speaks Tojolabal, manages the economic development program. He is the son of indigenous farmers who used to work on a large finca back in the day. He told me how when he used to be a young boy of 8 years old that he would talk Tojolabal with all the other children on the finca and that his father would discourage him from doing so and told him he should only speak Castilla (Spanish). So he did and he lost most of his Tojolabal until he was in his 20s and when he began interacting with Tojolabal-speakers outside of the finca and gained it all back. Now, as director of the microcredit project in EduPaz, he speaks Tojoloba all the time.
EduPaz has a more personalized way in managing its microcredit program than many other non-profit organizations. Before a group of community members can receive microcredit, EduPaz will have a dialog with them 3 times to make sure everyone understands the conditions and why these conditions exist. All members of the group have to become responsible for the group members to pay back their loans. A board of directors is selected and then Jose, with the support of Javier, EduPaz’s executive director, will check one by one all the microcredit proposals and budgets to ensure that the proposed income-generating project will be guaranteed a positive result.
EduPaz will also assist the groups by providing financial administration training to each group. But they do not organize workshops and then ask people to come. Instead, they go to each of the groups they work with, one by one, and give each group the necessary training to build everyone’s capacity to administer their loans.
Before, EduPaz used to offer many workshops such as training in agroecology and seminars on NAFTA and the World Bank but they discovered that not many would attend and people were just not interested. They decided to stop offering the workshops and focus on giving more personal attention to each group.
EduPaz’s office includes a collective store on the first floor where group members involved in the microcredit program can sell their products. The store is focused on offering products that are both organically made and qualify as fair trade. The main product they sell is organic coffee as EduPaz has given a microcredit to organic coffee collectives.
EduPaz has only three staff members and all of them are constantly traveling, mostly to the communities in the Zona Selva and Fronteriza, that border with Guatemala. In spite of the small staff they seem to be covering lots of neglected areas and the advantage of having a Tojolabal native on staff makes a lot of difference.
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After finishing this visit, I feel sad and happy that my work in Chiapas has been completed. I am sad to leave Chiapas as this has been a magical place to be and for me it has been quite an eye-opening experience where I have witnessed the hard work that is being done on the ground with the financial support IDEX has provided. This is a place where you can meet many activists, many community members and people living with another type of government. I am happy to be able take all that I saw and learned back with me to San Francisco to do a better job in raising more funds and working harder to make my small contribution to supporting the various groups that IDEX supports there.
I hope you have all enjoyed reading about my trip and has encouraged you to visit Chiapas and/or learn more about the work that is being done there.
Until the next trip…. Peace out!
Kat
Katherine, with Toño, DESMI’s Director
When I entered DESMI’s office, I thought to myself, “I want to work here!” DESMI’s office is in a beautiful colonial house with a huge garden, which they have owned since 1979. I knew several of DESMI’s staff from my IDEX trip to Guatemala last year, so seeing them again felt like seeing old friends.
Sitting down with the staff on my office visit, DESMI taught me a lot about their programs, and specifically their microcredit program. DESMI works in 3 regional areas in Chiapas: North, South and Los Altos. Currently, they have one person managing each regional area but they are in a process of staff restructuring to see if there is a way to better facilitate the work in these areas by distributing the responsibility.
I found DESMI’s microcredit program very interesting. DESMI’s loan fund will only be distributed to collectives. The whole process from the moment the community applies for microcredit to receiving it may take 2 to 3 months, as DESMI wants to ensure that the microcredit they receive will guarantee success of their project. There hasn’t been a case where DESMI has rejected an application. Instead, if something doesn’t make sense or the application is not complete, DESMI’s staff will take the time to visit the collective and work together on the application. Every first Monday of the month, DESMI’s staff sits down together to look at all the applications. Since 2003, they have not received many applications.
DESMI expressed to me their excitement on the exchange trip they’re doing next week together with K’inal Antsetik to visit IDEX’s Guatemalan partners: AFEDES, APROSADSE and ISMU, as well as other organizations. They are planning to visit AFEDES’ Weavers’ Store in Santiago Sacatepequez and APROSADSE’s agricultural program in Chimaltenango.
DESMI is hoping to learn especially how these organizations work with gender issues into their programs, since DESMI is also initiating their own workshops on masculinity. These exchange trips, organized by IDEX partners themselves, came about during IDEX’s regional conference in Antigua, Guatemala in January 2006. IDEX’s partners decided they wanted to exchange experiences as they saw that they all were facing similar challenges although living in different political and cultural contexts.
IDEX has been a long supporter of DESMI and it’s easy to see why. DESMI is continually working to become more efficient in their site visits, training and in being more aware of the needs of the communities. DESMI is currently working on developing a monitoring and evaluation plan to ensure they are achieving the objectives they have set themselves to accomplish.”It hasn’t been successful yet, to be honest,” Toño, DESMI’s Director tells me, “but we are doing our best to get this plan together because we want to make sure that DESMI is working well to improve the quality of life of these communities.”
Kat
