this is a touched-up picture
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
The Colombia Adventure
God’s Answer to: “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread”
God led me to business approaches for ministry. I began as a missionary with the Latin America Mission in 1974. Ministry with college students in Latin America resulted in a service enterprise, a dormitory residence for 26 students complete with full-time cook and house administrator. This ideal context for student ministry was run as a business simply because we did not have the funds to sustain it in any other way. When the Christian students in the dorm helped start an outreach project in a slum community, they decided that a community survey should be the first point of contact with the people, and the results of this survey demonstrated that the greatest need was for jobs for the women, who in the majority of cases were the sole providers for the children. The concept of helping the women make bean bag furniture was presented, because it was a productive economic activity they could do at home while watching the children, I had no idea that this was going to be so successful. The project changed the life of the community economically, and in the process created the foundations for a Bible study that evolved into a church.
I was so impressed by this experience that I went to the University of Michigan Graduate School of Business to study how business can be used to address the needs of the poor. My classmates were studying how to be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, so I had no idea that I would find several professors who were very interested in helping me. One had worked with the International Labour Organization in Geneva, and assigned me several projects related to “the informal sector.” Another was working on small business projects with the World Bank, and my professor of international marketing had been a missionary in Africa.
When I graduated with the MBA degree, I was offered a position with the Institute for International Development, a Christian agency that helped the poor through economic development. They hired me to organize a micro enterprise project in Honduras in 1979, the first of several I would help start through that organization, which is now called Opportunity International.
I am so fortunate to go back where I started, through the Latin America Mission, where business has long been an acceptable tool for the ministry of the church, and work in job creation for displaced people in Colombia.
Pity the internally displaced of Colombia! Now that the country has become relatively more secure, there are few programs to help them go home. Theoretically, resettlement programs should be a top priority – get the refugees back home and self sufficient. But there are no programs for this in many places in Colombia today.
Latin America Mission (LAM) began serving in Colombia in 1936, specifically addressing health needs in what then was the state of Bolívar, now divided into Sucre, Córdoba, and Bolívar. This was a difficult area: poor, hot, and ravaged by typhoid and other diseases. The LAM center of operations was Sincelejo, with significant operations also in Monteria and Cartagena. Health centers, schools, and a center for agricultural production were all part of the program. So it should come as no surprise that the LAM is now working with a local agency, Desarrollo Intergral, to help in the reconstruction of this area of Colombia.
It is possible to travel by bus from Cartagena to Sincelejo, and throughout the region. The rebels have either left the area or gone underground, and the paramilitary squads have been disbanded. The people are returning to the rural and small towns they had to abandon. But they need help.
Desarrollo Integral has begun a revolving credit fund to generate income and employment in the region. Small loans that average $350 are helping people to re-start their commercial activity, whether urban or rural. Total capital secured for this program so far is less than $30,000, and additional resources are needed, whether donated to the venture capital fund, or lent to the locally registered small business lender in Colombia.
The LAM has provided training for small business entrepreneurs, many of whom are women and youth. Due to the civil war and migration patterns, the majority of the families in the region are dependent on women and young people to generate income. Yet these are two groups of people whose needs are least addressed by government or other international agency services, that tend to be focused on incentives to end the civil war, i.e. incentives for ex-combatants.
Desarrollo Integral has located a site for a permanent Center for Training in Entrepreneurship. This facility has housing for 42 participants, and also land and additional areas for business incubator operations and warehousing. The total cost for this facility is less than the cost of a home in Miami.
Four ways that Desarrollo Integral is creating work opportunities include:
Service Businesses – the development of self-sustaining enterprises such as clinics, dental offices, schools, and bookstores, where the project charges a fee for services. Some of these projects have a wide impact, The Betel school in Sincelejo, Colombia (elementary and high school) has over 600 students, and a loan for expanding its physical plant.
Endowment Enterprises - for a local foundation for long-term support of social projects. For example, an agricultural project that produces chickens and pigs was created to support the children’s programs, channeling thousands of dollars of direct financial support for day care centers.
Business Incubators – the creation of new businesses for target populations needing income or employment, but not having a background or experience in productive economic activity. The business idea is generated by the ministry. Training, production, sales, and all assets are controlled by the ministry until participants have learned to manage the business on their own.
Micro Credit Programs – revolving loan programs for people who have a business idea, and usually some experience, and who, with additional capital, can generate funds to pay back the loan with interest. The programs require an administrative unit capable of organizing basic paperwork, evaluating loan proposals, disbursing loans, providing training, collecting loans, and financial reporting. The program in Colombia operates a small loans program averaging $350/family, to allow poor people to begin to fully support their families.
I will help with these programs, as a missionary-consultant able to promote training and assistance, the viability of economic projects, and governance and a staffing structure that is self-reliant.
Before coming back to the LAM as President in 1999, Befus started many of the Opportunity International programs in Latin America, and also helped World Vision develop its micro-finance programs in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. He wrote a book on the implementation of economic development programs called “Where There Are No Jobs.”
God led me to business approaches for ministry. I began as a missionary with the Latin America Mission in 1974. Ministry with college students in Latin America resulted in a service enterprise, a dormitory residence for 26 students complete with full-time cook and house administrator. This ideal context for student ministry was run as a business simply because we did not have the funds to sustain it in any other way. When the Christian students in the dorm helped start an outreach project in a slum community, they decided that a community survey should be the first point of contact with the people, and the results of this survey demonstrated that the greatest need was for jobs for the women, who in the majority of cases were the sole providers for the children. The concept of helping the women make bean bag furniture was presented, because it was a productive economic activity they could do at home while watching the children, I had no idea that this was going to be so successful. The project changed the life of the community economically, and in the process created the foundations for a Bible study that evolved into a church.
I was so impressed by this experience that I went to the University of Michigan Graduate School of Business to study how business can be used to address the needs of the poor. My classmates were studying how to be CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, so I had no idea that I would find several professors who were very interested in helping me. One had worked with the International Labour Organization in Geneva, and assigned me several projects related to “the informal sector.” Another was working on small business projects with the World Bank, and my professor of international marketing had been a missionary in Africa.
When I graduated with the MBA degree, I was offered a position with the Institute for International Development, a Christian agency that helped the poor through economic development. They hired me to organize a micro enterprise project in Honduras in 1979, the first of several I would help start through that organization, which is now called Opportunity International.
I am so fortunate to go back where I started, through the Latin America Mission, where business has long been an acceptable tool for the ministry of the church, and work in job creation for displaced people in Colombia.
Pity the internally displaced of Colombia! Now that the country has become relatively more secure, there are few programs to help them go home. Theoretically, resettlement programs should be a top priority – get the refugees back home and self sufficient. But there are no programs for this in many places in Colombia today.
Latin America Mission (LAM) began serving in Colombia in 1936, specifically addressing health needs in what then was the state of Bolívar, now divided into Sucre, Córdoba, and Bolívar. This was a difficult area: poor, hot, and ravaged by typhoid and other diseases. The LAM center of operations was Sincelejo, with significant operations also in Monteria and Cartagena. Health centers, schools, and a center for agricultural production were all part of the program. So it should come as no surprise that the LAM is now working with a local agency, Desarrollo Intergral, to help in the reconstruction of this area of Colombia.
It is possible to travel by bus from Cartagena to Sincelejo, and throughout the region. The rebels have either left the area or gone underground, and the paramilitary squads have been disbanded. The people are returning to the rural and small towns they had to abandon. But they need help.
Desarrollo Integral has begun a revolving credit fund to generate income and employment in the region. Small loans that average $350 are helping people to re-start their commercial activity, whether urban or rural. Total capital secured for this program so far is less than $30,000, and additional resources are needed, whether donated to the venture capital fund, or lent to the locally registered small business lender in Colombia.
The LAM has provided training for small business entrepreneurs, many of whom are women and youth. Due to the civil war and migration patterns, the majority of the families in the region are dependent on women and young people to generate income. Yet these are two groups of people whose needs are least addressed by government or other international agency services, that tend to be focused on incentives to end the civil war, i.e. incentives for ex-combatants.
Desarrollo Integral has located a site for a permanent Center for Training in Entrepreneurship. This facility has housing for 42 participants, and also land and additional areas for business incubator operations and warehousing. The total cost for this facility is less than the cost of a home in Miami.
Four ways that Desarrollo Integral is creating work opportunities include:
Service Businesses – the development of self-sustaining enterprises such as clinics, dental offices, schools, and bookstores, where the project charges a fee for services. Some of these projects have a wide impact, The Betel school in Sincelejo, Colombia (elementary and high school) has over 600 students, and a loan for expanding its physical plant.
Endowment Enterprises - for a local foundation for long-term support of social projects. For example, an agricultural project that produces chickens and pigs was created to support the children’s programs, channeling thousands of dollars of direct financial support for day care centers.
Business Incubators – the creation of new businesses for target populations needing income or employment, but not having a background or experience in productive economic activity. The business idea is generated by the ministry. Training, production, sales, and all assets are controlled by the ministry until participants have learned to manage the business on their own.
Micro Credit Programs – revolving loan programs for people who have a business idea, and usually some experience, and who, with additional capital, can generate funds to pay back the loan with interest. The programs require an administrative unit capable of organizing basic paperwork, evaluating loan proposals, disbursing loans, providing training, collecting loans, and financial reporting. The program in Colombia operates a small loans program averaging $350/family, to allow poor people to begin to fully support their families.
I will help with these programs, as a missionary-consultant able to promote training and assistance, the viability of economic projects, and governance and a staffing structure that is self-reliant.
Before coming back to the LAM as President in 1999, Befus started many of the Opportunity International programs in Latin America, and also helped World Vision develop its micro-finance programs in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe. He wrote a book on the implementation of economic development programs called “Where There Are No Jobs.”
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