alumni day - The Taft School

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHTFinancing Afghan EntrepreneursJonathan Griswold ’94 moved toAfghanistan just over a year ago to be thedirector of the Foundation for InternationalCommunity Assistance there.FINCA is one of several organizationsthat provide credit programs to womenentrepreneurs and working mothers. In2002, FINCA programs lent nearly $135million directly to subsistence-level entrepreneursin Central America, Africa,and Eastern Europe, with a 97 percentrepayment rate.Griswold worked in the northwesternprovince of Herat, where there arestreetlights and electricity, but said thatmost of FINCA’s clients live in rural,mountainous areas, where such amenitiesare unheard of and the roads are oftenbad. FINCA employs female credit officersto meet the women in their villages,but finding suitable help is a challenge,Griswold told the Washington Times.“It’s hard to get the skills you wantin a country where so few have had anyIt’s not easy to go into nonprofitwork—especially when you leave collegewith lots of debt—but it’s possibleif you are willing to sacrifice somethings. I can tell you it’s hard to juggle.”A native Brazilian, Nelson lovesLatin America and feels privileged towork closely with activists on thefrontlines. Based in New York City,she recently spent time in Colombiaand Mexico.Nelson has previously worked forthe Inter-American Coalition for thePrevention of Violence (IACPV) andthe Center for Justice and InternationalLaw (CEJIL). She has a degree in internationalrelations from the Schoolof Foreign Service at GeorgetownUniversity. She speaks fluent Portuguese,English, and Spanish and isproficient in French.Jonathan Griswold ’94 in Afghanistan works to provide credit programs to womenentrepreneurs and working mothers.access to school, let alone informationtechnology or accounting training,” hesaid. “Many women want desperatelyto start their own careers but must stillfinish school, do all the domestic work,and sometimes overcome the resistanceof male relatives.”Griswold began his work withFINCA when they asked him to managetheir loan portfolio in southernAzerbaijan back in 2002. He had beeninterning with Save the Children inAzerbaijan for the previous six monthsat their micro finance program.“I had always been interested in thedeveloping world and wanted to use mymodest business experience in a moreexciting place to help poor people.When FINCA asked me to start up theAfghanistan program in August 2003,there probably weren’t too many peopleinterested in the job.”Griswold said he had few expectations;the few he did were either aboutthe developing world in general (bothpoorer and more resilient than he expected)and nongovernmental operations(many of whose contributions made himskeptical about humanitarian agencies).“Afghanistan is a land of extremes,”he said, “and also a hopelessly romanticplace. Few places on earth have beenso lightly touched by time as many ofits remote villages. Few places are sodifferent from America. The peoplehave an amazing and deep tradition ofcourtesy, and the poorest family willaccord a foreigner an embarrassing displayof hospitality.”At the same time, Griswold said hehas found that Afghanis are often fiercelyproud and independent, and tribal traditionsare often observed far morestrictly than Islamic teaching.“Most of what has been taken forIslamic extremism in Afghanistan (abuseof women, distrust of foreign influence,factional feuds) is backward tribalismclothed in a misapplication of Islam.“It’s an amazing and exhaustingplace that gets under your skin and defiestidy summary,” he said.Griswold left the Afghan steppe inJune to make his way back to U.S. viaBaku, Turkey, Zurich, and Paris. He iscurrently living in Washington, D.C.Taft Bulletin Summer 20047