Web: http://www.impactfirst.net/
Interview with Global Director Matthew Legge conducted by staff member Max Chewinski
About Impact First:
Impact First International is a Canadian non-profit organization dedicated to creating equal access to social and economic opportunities for individuals and communities in low-income countries. Members of Impact First believe in a development strategy that attempts to address the multifaceted and complex nature of poverty through microfinance, health, and basic education initiatives.
Although Impact First makes this development approach available to youth and men, it mainly focuses on women. Why? Gender inequality is an issue that is evident in many low-income and traditional countries. Impact First believes it is important to consider women in development initiatives, especially since they compose 70% of those living in absolute poverty. To integrate women into economic pursuits, Impact First International has developed what is called Women First Banking. This financial service provides women with microloans to support microenterprise initiatives. As the number of participating women increases, funding grows until the process becomes self-sustaining. In addition, Women First Banking provides its clientele with business skills training, health, and basic education services. Women are able to attend workshops that address issues such as women's rights, domestic abuse, hygiene, child nutrition, family planning, and pregnancy. To complement the workshops, through local partnerships, Impact First helps provide women with cost-effective health services.
Impact First initiatives produce impressive results. Evidence indicates that increases in women's access to education and income generating opportunities are linked to: lower fertility rates, increased female autonomy and decision making power outside of the home, improved child health and nutrition, higher levels of self-esteem, and serve as a tool for women to empower themselves. Furthermore, Impact First observes that these initiatives help change male attitudes towards women, especially in encouraging them to become more economically and publicly involved. These improvements are also linked to general national development goals of each country.
Impact First encourages sustainability by:1. Working towards national development goals.
2. Building strong and effective partnerships with local NGOs, community leaders and volunteers, healthcare providers and municipal authorities.
3. Ensuring local participation in all facets of program development, including design, implementation, evaluation, and the active involvement and participation of women.
4. Remaining accountable for each program's design, management and results.
Click here for the Impact First Progress Report.
I asked Matthew Legge a few questions about his work and the operations of Impact First International:
1. As Global Director of Impact First International, what is your role in the organization?
I do a bit of everything. It is quite common among smaller non-profit organizations that staff multi-task all day, every day. Among other responsibilities, I am in charge of overseeing programs, training partners, several administrative duties, and communications.
2. Overall, how does Impact First view the importance of education in poverty reduction?
Education is critical in poverty reduction. Our work has shown us the power of basic education to transform the lives of women and their communities. We have seen that women who are able to get a basic education have improved levels of self-esteem, leadership and often are able to become more economically active. This not only benefits themselves, but their entire families.
3. The 2010 Progress Report highlights topics addressed in health education workshops, but only briefly mentions business skills training as a feature of Women First Banking. What kind of business skills does Impact First provide women with?
We provide training in agriculture, animal husbandry (chicken, turkey, pig, goat and cow raising), basic budgeting and math, and we are currently looking to develop more training programs in the areas of marketing and potential micro-business collaborations.
4. The case study on Guatemala indicates that, as part of your development approach, basic education is provided. What kind(s) of education? How does educating women affect their families, specifically their children?
In Guatemala, Peru, and the Dominican Republic at the moment, we are providing basic health and vocational/business education. In Guatemala we are also trying to partner with a government program that offers literacy training, as this is an area of significant need.
The most striking effects of this education are in terms of women's attitudes and behaviours. In places where we work, women have typically never had a space to meet and express themselves. They don't know what that is like. At first, they tend to be shy and will speak little, giggle a lot, and often hide their faces when a trainer (themselves local women by the way) brings up a sensitive topic like family planning. But within a short time this all changes. Women become more assertive and they start participating in decisions that they never took before. The impact on their children is that women will fight for their children's education in many cases where their husbands would previously have not allowed it and spent money on other things like alcohol. But when women participate in training on their rights, and when they have improved incomes from their micro-businesses, those improvements are almost always felt by their children.
5. Are loans only provided for women with established businesses, or any women that express interest? If so, why is this the case? If not, how does Impact First target and assist non-working women in identifying potential business ventures?
Loans are provided to any woman that is peer-approved and approved by Impact First. Peers will generally not approve a woman who has absolutely no income generating activities. However, women will generally have some basic assets like several chickens or a small crop, which will be enough that, with the provided education, they will be able to run a viable micro-business. We do not work with populations that are absolutely destitute (homeless). In the areas we serve in Guatemala, for example, poverty is surprisingly homogenous with most people being below the poverty line but still having some very minimal form of micro business. For an organization to work with the destitute, that is, people who have absolutely no assets and are in a very precarious situation, it is necessary to include additional steps in your program. You would first provide handouts (e.g. the first 5 chickens we will buy for you and teach you how to raise, while we also fix up your house so you don't have to worry about shelter and we buy you some basic staple foods for a year). The person could then hopefully reach a point where they are able to receive a microloan for their small chicken selling business. But again, we work with women who are very poor, but still have some basic business already in place – they already have the small home and the 5 chickens. What they need is access to microcredit and micro savings, both of which our Women First Banking associations provide.
6. What are some of the challenges Impact First faces in providing education and micro financing services?
Our biggest challenge is fundraising. There is a massive demand for our services and we constantly have to tell new villages that, as of yet, we don't have money to lend them and ask for their patience in the meantime. Currently, we have not had a default in Guatemala and that is thanks to having the right local staff that spend a lot of time with the clients to make sure they are responsible and understand the value of our work.
7. How does Impact First contribute to the sustainability of education and micro-financing initiatives? Our goal is to reach 2,000 clients in Guatemala. At that size our education and microfinance program will be fully self-sufficient and able to pay for: staff salaries, materials, travel, monitoring, office administration, etc. from the interest earned on the micro-loans. This is the power of a successful microfinance program. Few other non-profit initiatives can become fully sustainable and do so as quickly.
8. How do we provide total education to people in low-income nations?
In the cases of Guatemala, Peru, or India the problems of a lack of access to education are severe among the rural poor. The indigenous populations we serve are frequently monolingual in their distinct languages, most of which aren't even spoken by people who grew up in the nearest city, much less in another province. Thus, the problems for the Ministries of Education include having enough schools to serve areas with low population density and minimal transportation options, and staffing those schools with well trained teachers that are fluent in local languages. I don't have an easy answer to this question. I do know that having a culturally appropriate and sensitive curriculum is crucial. In the case of health education we will always try to provide parallel explanations; giving both bio-medical and traditional descriptions greatly improves learning and acceptance, which we've seen translating into improved health practices. On the other hand, ignoring or attempting to put down tradition is not effective or respectful.
We would like to thank Matthew and Impact First for their time and participation in this interview.