Spring 11 MASTER.indd - Thunderbird Magazine

winterim wonderlands
Winterim diary
Dignity, community and beauty in rural India
BY RENÉE TELKAMP ’11
Ihave a good academic understanding of microfinance.
So after a long plane ride and browsing
through my travel guide, I felt more or less
ready for the real deal in India.
The first three days of this Winterim were spent
in meeting rooms in Delhi. If this sounds boring
to you, you obviously weren’t with us.
Cellphone banking, solar lights, unions, government
regulations, nongovernment organizations,
nonbanking institutions, multiple lending and all
the other concepts were discussed and put into
place. By the end, we were as ready as foreigners in
India could be for “the field.”
Jodhpur is a town in Rajasthan, a state in the
northwest part of India. While the microfinance
industry is present here, it is not widespread.
We had the honor to shadow a local microfinance
institution called Bazaari. In one day,
the group showed us all the different steps of the
lending process — from house visits to confirm
employment, marriage and financial situation,
to disbursement, to financial literacy training, to
the weekly center meetings when payments are
collected.
We started at 9 a.m. sharp on a beautiful sunny
day in January 2011 on a rooftop in Jodhpur. Five
rows of five women, all dressed in colorful saris,
sat on the floor. The center meeting of Baazari
Global Finance opened with a checking of names.
Afterward, one of the women read a pledge in
Hindi, and all the women repeated after her. Then
each woman took out the money she owed, along
with a card that showed her progress on a 40-week
loan cycle.
Our next activity involved doorstep service, a
straightforward process that builds joint relationships
of trust and pride. It sounds almost too good
to be true, but that is what Bazaari delivers to its
loan recipients.
Our first day in the field overwhelmed my
senses. The colors, the pride, the buzz of excitement
that filled the air wherever our group went,
the many activities that were going on at the same
time … it was incredible.
People often equate poverty to gloom and
depression. But that is not what I saw. Being poor
means life is hard. But there is dignity, community
and beauty.
Renée Telkamp ’11
from the Netherlands
shares her perspective
during the 2011
Microfi nance and
Microenterprise Winterim
in India with Thunderbird
Professor Melissa Beran
Samuelson.
Not pictured below is Adjunct Professor Ivor Roberts, who leads a Global Institutions Winterim in
Switzerland. Thunderbird Emeritus Professor Robert Gottlieb also leads an Export/Import Management
Winterim in Arizona, but the course did not run in 2011.
Microfinance
and Microenterprise
with Professor
Melissa
Beran
Samuelson
in India.
Green Energy
Innovation and
Application
with Professor
Andreas
Schotter,
Ph.D., in
Germany.
Fundamentals
of Spanish
I and II with
Adjunct
Professor
Monica
Muñoz in
Peru.
The Entrepreneur/CEO
Founders Seminar
with Professor
Steven
Stralser, Ph.D.,
in Glendale,
Arizona.
The Big
Emerging
Market of
India with
Professor
Kishore
Dash, Ph.D.
Global Business Development
with Professor Lauranne
Buchanan, Ph.D., and Adjunct
Instructor Linda Wetzel in
Jordan.
thunderbird magazine 47