Hiding Poverty

We had our second meeting at the bank branch in Villa Alba today. We met with a different group of women who were absolutely fantastic. They are the most experienced group, so much so, that the women are in charge of themselves. Instead of an bank worker running the meeting, the borrowers run the meeting and manage the loans themselves. The level of sophistication, understanding of microfinance and trust among the women still amazes me.

It was great getting to know the ladies and hearing their stories. The best part of this organization, and this may be true for microfinance in general, is the solidarity, support and community spirit among the borrowers. Each borrower is put into a group of five and are responsible for each other. If one defaults on her loan, then the others must pay it for her. If someone leaves the group for any reason, the rest of the girls choose a new person to become a borrower. It is totally run from the inside by the women themselves. A large difficulty for the poor is the feeling of exclusion from the rest of society and lost hope to escape poverty. Microfinance, in addition to giving out monetary support, creates a system of individuals who become more confident in their abilities to break the cycle of poverty and gain hope for a better future for themselves and their families.

Afterwards, we interviewed operators of the branch for our report. When we asked them about the state of poverty in the neighborhood. One interesting thing that came up was that individuals here try to hide their poverty. The poor do not want to appear poor so they buy and wear expensive (or expensive-looking) clothing so when they go into the city, they don't appear poor. However, their homes and living standards are of a level of extreme poverty. Most use tin for the walls of their houses and have dirt floors. This observation really struck me. I never really thought about the amount of shame or consciousness individuals might have about being poor. Enough so that they spend money on fancy clothes instead of basic necessities.

I've studied poverty at school, but the textbooks and courses cannot actually show or teach what is poverty. Being here, talking to these women and seeing their neighborhood, I am able to begin understanding what it really means to be poor. Unfortunately, in most societies, the extremely poor are excluded by the rest of society -- so much so that many that could help are unaware of the terrible conditions others are in. One of the goals of Grameen La Plata is to create more awareness of the state of poverty in the city's surrounding neighborhoods. However, I think that only after one visits and connects with individuals in extreme poverty, can one actually partially comprehend the complexity of poverty.