Grameen Foundation : Where we work : Latin America / Caribbean : Dominican Republic : Esperanza Internacional
Esperanza Internacional
| Status snapshot as of March 2008 | |
| Active clients | 13,308 |
| Loan portfolio (USD) | $1,277,937 |
| Portfolio At Risk >30 days* | 2.7% |
| * Value of all loans outstanding that have one or more installments past due more than 30 days | |
Esperanza Internacional was founded in 1995 by former baseball player Dave Valle after he visited the Dominican Republic for off-season training. Esperanza Internacional focuses on promoting and facilitating the integral development of poor families and communities through microfinance, health and education services, and business training. Operations in the Dominican Republic are managed by country director Carlos Pimentel.
Outreach:
With technical and financial support provided by Grameen Foundation, Esperanza is planning to continue its expansion strategy to meet the demand for microfinance by reaching 18,505 households by 2009.
One of Esperanza’s initiatives, “Hope and Life” is the only holistic microfinance program of its kind in the Dominican Republic. It focuses solely on people living with HIV/AIDS providing them with low-cost treatment and microfinance. It currently operates within three branches in Puerto Plata, Santo Domingo and San Pedro de Macoris, and will be expanded to other branches.
Grameen Foundation support:
In 2002, the Bank of Reserves of the Dominican Republic (BRRD) approached Grameen Foundation about supporting a poverty-lending initiative within the country. The BRRD contracted Grameen Foundation to provide on-site technical assistance, training, and project coordination for two and a half years. Grameen Foundation evaluated nine of the most promising microfinance institutions in the DR and chose to partner with Esperanza Internacional .
In collaboration with the BRRD and a new foundation that was created to facilitate this project, Grameen Foundation provided onsite technical support through a full time senior technical consultant from Grameen Bank and a Grameen Foundation country representative. These consultants worked intensively with Esperanza from November 2003 to December 2005 to develop a five-year business plan based on a fast-track growth model. The Grameen Foundation team supported the local staff led by Esperanza Country Director Carlos Pimentel in developing operational and training manuals; overseeing the implementation of monitoring and reporting systems; providing field staff training in microfinance best practices; instituting branch-level performance monitoring modeled on the Grameen Bank’s approach; and offering guidance on the development of a new management information system.
To support these efforts, in 2005, star baseball player Alfonso Soriano and Grameen Foundation created the Andrea Soriano Fund, which is named in honor of Soriano’s mother.
In March 2006, Esperanza lost two integral members of the microfinance team in a tragic car accident. Despite the shock of this tremendous loss, staff members expressed a firm resolve to honor the memory of these colleagues by carrying on their expansion plan. In response to the immediate need for personnel capacity building, Grameen Foundation arranged training visits for Esperanza staff to microfinance partner programs in Bolivia and Honduras. Grameen Foundation also sponsored two staff members to attend an advanced microfinance training workshop in Guatemala in August 2006. In addition, former Grameen Foundation country representative Andrea Findley volunteered with them for several months. As of December 2007, Grameen Foundation had provided over $542,000 in loans to Esperanza.
Learn more at: www.esperanza.org
Grameen Foundation : Where we work : Latin America / Caribbean : Dominican Republic : Esperanza Internacional
Grameen Foundation uses microfinance and innovative technology to fight global poverty and bring opportunities to the world's poorest people. With tiny loans and financial services, we help the poor, mostly women, start businesses and escape poverty. Our global network of 55 microfinance institution (MFI) partners including our Growth Guarantee partners has touched more than 34 million people in 24 countries. In addition, we introduced and now sustain technology initiatives (Mifos and Village Phone) in Cameroon, Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda, bringing our total country outreach to 28.
+1-202-628-3560 www.grameenfoundation.org
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