Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/58061
Lehigh University students Scott Menzer and Kelsey Smith work with Cesar Alfaro of FUNED, looking for ways to make microfinance organizations in Honduras like FUNED more efficient. to promote its microfinance program, he says, since it can be shown to administrators, sponsors, and other students who might be interested in a future trip or a course. The Right Student Attitude Just as there is more than one approach to teaching microfi- nance, there is more than one type of student who might sign up to learn about it. Brands and Wuerth find that many of their students are also interested in sustainable development and corporate social responsibility. "For instance, two of the Destination: Microfinance If seeing is believing, then students at two U.S. universities had a chance to become believers when they traveled to very different parts of the world to see microfinance in action. A multidisciplinary group of students from Lehigh University traveled to Honduras in 2006 to work with REDMICROH, a network of microfinance institutions headquartered in Tegucigalpa. Their goal was to use their technology skills to make REDMICROH more efficient— specifically by developing a program for handheld PDAs that would help loan officers in the field quickly enter infor- mation about their clients and consolidate the loan process from about three days to 20 minutes. The team of students—including economics, computer sciences, and business majors—were accompanied by Andrea Wuerth of Lehigh's Martindale Center for the Study of Private Enterprise and Todd Watkins, associate professor of economics at Lehigh's College of Business and Econom- ics. Watkins and Wuerth had been teaching a microfinance class since the spring of 2005, and Watkins secured a grant that would fund the trip. During the ten-day visit, stu- dents visited with five microfinance organizations with dif- ferent approaches, philosophies, and geographic focuses. Wuerth believes that the participating students came back with a changed perspective of the world. "These are kids who, almost exclusively, grew up in suburban environ- ments," she says. "They had never seen anything like the poverty they saw there. At the same time, they expected people to be more downtrodden. What we saw were people making a heck of a lot out of very little. They were taking out small loans and using the money to turn their lives around. It was a life-altering experience for students." She plans to accompany another group to Honduras again this spring. 30 BizEd MAY/JUNE 2007 In a similar fashion, a multidisciplinary group of 17 students from the University of Iowa traveled to India between December 2006 and January 2007 as part of their course on "Microfinance for Women-Run Enterprises." The class was led by geography professor Rangaswamy Rajagopal, adjunct professor Edwin Brands, and Christine Brus, director of Women in Science and Engineering. "During a semester-long course at the university, we read about microfinance in different parts of the world and looked at different models," says Brands. But much of the real learning occurred in India. There, students actually got to meet the people involved, he says, including loan recipi- ents and individuals running microfinance organizations. While some of the lessons students learned might not have an immediate relation to coursework, Brands believes those lessons will stick with students a long time. "My hopes are that the students will have a broader perspective, not just on microfinance, but on what it's like to be running a small business by the shoestrings when your family depends on it to eat," says Brands. "Perhaps there's a couple with their two children living in a ten-by-ten hut. They bend metal to make fasteners for stainless steel buck- ets. They have a fire going, and the baby's there, and the two-year-old is there, and they do this work every day, all day long. Seeing that gives students a very real perspective on the world. Speaking personally, I've never felt richer than I did when I came back here." ANDREA WUERTH