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August 1, 2013 by SKIC | No Comments

Why Zimbabwe?

When he first began SKIC, Shyam was asked countless times why he didn’t start it in India: “You’re of Indian origin, everybody is already there – why not go there too?” And that’s exactly why he didn’t. Shyam reasoned that, while there is plenty of demand in India, there’s also plenty of supply. He wanted to go somewhere where the supply was not meeting the demand, a place where he could truly help.

The place on his mind was Zimbabwe. In going to the London School of Economics, Shyam became good friends with a number of people from Zimbabwe, which was where he first became familiar with some of the country’s characteristics. “There’s a huge Zimbabwean contingent in London, mainly because of the political problems in their home country. But also because it’s a culture that values education and entrepreneurism a great deal. I learned all of this by studying in London with a number of people from Zimbabwe – and I was always impressed by them as students, and as people.”

Zimbabwe earned a special place in Shyam’s heart then, but it wasn’t until later that he thought to make it such a big part of the charity – and of his life. His previous job required him to do a lot of work in southern Africa and through that he got back in touch with his close friends whom he had met in London. They told him not the believe the headlines about Zimbabwe and encouraged him to go there. Shyam had always told them,

“I’m happy to do something positive, but where can we, with our limited resources, make the greatest impact? Whether financial resources or intellectual resources or energy, we want the most bang for buck. That’s the way to maximize your impact. So I went to Zimbabwe because I had a feeling we could make a positive and unique impact there. And that’s exactly what I found; these are people who are English speaking; they’ll get an education if it bankrupts them, very smart entrepreneurs, very globalized. They understood what it takes to make something from nothing.”

When Shyam made his initial visits, he realized how isolated Zimbabwe was – the entire world had turned their back on them because of an old ossified governing elite, who had no idea what was happening at the grassroots level. And the people were punished for the transgressions of that elite. “I knew that it would be the perfect place for us to go working, at least for us to do our development work,” says Shyam.

Shyam deliberated about how to engage Zimbabwe. He wanted to help and they needed help – but how? He realized that microfinance was the ideal approach because it was a concept that tapped into their entrepreneurial spirit, and their community-mindedness as well. Shyam notes,

“They are very focused on local business, local economy, creating value locally. But it also was sensitive towards their pride. Zimbabwe people are very proud. Since their independence in 1980 until about 2000, they led Africa in literacy, economic productivity, and were revered as the breadbasket of Africa. They’ve always been productive people. They’re very proud of their culture and of their history. So I knew that they did not just want to be handed out money. I knew they wanted to be treated as equals, as members of the global community, because there was every reason saying that they were going to break out of this funk very soon. Micro-finance was so ideal for their situation. ”

He continues, “In Zimbabwe, as far as I could tell, we were the only people providing microfinance on a not-for-profit basis in the entire country. At least from a point of view of being registered as a proper not-for-profit. There are plenty of people making loans for profit, and there are people doing it informally in a not so organized way. When we started in 2010, nobody else was doing this.”

And so Shyam found his place – one where there was demand, but not much supply. And one in which the people didn’t want to be handed money, but wanted to work for it. Three years later, and SKImfi participants continue to astound Shyam with their innovation, drive, and entrepreneurial skills

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June 25, 2013 by SKIC | No Comments

On the Right Track: Early Stage Scholarships in Zimbabwe

Shyam readily – and fondly – recalls observing young girls in Zimbabwe skipping their way to school at 4:30 in the morning. It’s a memory he can recount in vivid detail – and one that certainly left an impression on him. “There’s nothing like the sunsets and sunrises in Africa. The soil is blood red, the trees are the darkest of greens, the stars are fading. It is unbelievably peaceful. On this particular morning, these five or six young girls, their hair done up and their uniforms beautifully starched, skipped by me, so eager to go to school. It was just a regular day, but they were so excited – even despite having miles to go.”

Inspired by this enthusiasm, Shyam started SKIpgo, a SKI Charities program focusing on early stage scholarships. He believes that early-stage learning is the most important part of someone’s education, because it’s where you can make the greatest impact.

SKIpgo participants range from three to five years of age and are taught good study habits, and even simple things like hygiene, self-respect, and respect for others. The schools that these girls are placed in “are not just about teaching them English or history or math. It’s about teaching them how to be strong, independent women. And if they grow up with that idea, if we engrain that in them from the very beginning, they grow to become the leaders of their community, to be civic-minded women, and to prioritize education. They’re like sponges at that early stage. They absorb everything.”

The SKIpgo scholarship is also a preventative measure. A lot of women in developing countries go down a different path, where education isn’t prioritized. Some women get pregnant very early, or don’t have the confidence to say ‘I’ll have a husband later. I can do that when I’m in my later teens or 20s. Let me get an education first, because that will strengthen my family and my future, and the future of the community.’ The scholarship incentivizes education, something that many Zimbabweans already place a lot of value on.

Scholarship recipients are chosen by the SKI Charities’ local team. Elizabeth, our project manager in Zimbabwe “talks to trusted people in the community to get references on girls ages 3-5 who are needy, from a financial point of view, but who come from families and environments where they will be given the opportunity to maximize their educational potential.” Our local team makes sure that participants are supported by their families and encouraged by their parents to study and work hard.

Usually, the pool of potential SKIpgo scholars is 2-3 dozen. Elizabeth whittles that down to a short list of ten, by interviewing them and ensuring that the candidates will have the potential to grow into their educations. Because SKI Charities can only control the financial part of it, it’s important that we make sure the girls are coming from a home that encourages early stage education, studying, and female empowerment. “The home environment is something we don’t have control over,” Shyam contends, “So we try to gauge that in the interview process.”

After selecting candidates (so far, four per year), we choose the schools they attend. “We vet every school in the community,” Shyam asserts. “Some schools are run as businesses and try to make as much money as they can. Others have a history, have strong teachers, strong facilities, and we want to direct our girls towards those schools. That way, there’s no reason for them not to succeed in their education.”

Every term, the girls are monitored on their performance. We talk to their teachers and their parents. Ideally, we would continue to support these girls every single year, but it’s just not feasible. The idea is to get them off on the right foot, and to ensure, to the best of our ability, that their families will continue to support their education. SKI Charities is there for financial support, but ultimately, it is the girls’ home life that will determine their success.

The hope is that these girls will begin to value their own education from an early age, and from there, continue to push themselves. It will require self-initiative to do that, as well as a positive familial infrastructure. But the first step, providing the opportunity for growth and success, is just the open door that these young girls need.

 

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June 18, 2013 by SKIC | 1 Comment

What’s in a Name?

SKIpgo

Little girls skipped along the side of a dust road as an African sunrise peeked above the horizon, never knowing that the lasting image they created inspired the name of a scholarship program.

It was 4:30 in the morning, and Shyam was driving with colleagues through the bush—rural areas—of Zimbabwe. They passed countless children who walked miles upon miles to reach their schoolhouses as dusk turned to dawn.

“That’s how much they love education in Zim,” Shyam says.

His team came across a particularly striking group of young girls, dressed in neatly pressed school uniforms with beautifully done hair. They smiled widely as they skipped across blood red soil among tall baobab trees.

“So many of us forget what a privilege school is, we take it for granted,” Shyam says. “But these girls still had miles to go and were so visibly happy… at 4:30 a.m.! They were so excited to get to school, just skipping and going. That’s where the SKIpgo name comes from.”

Witnessing this pure eagerness to learn again and again has connected Shyam to Zimbabwe—the name SKIpgo, which stands for Program for Girls Opportunity, reminds him of the value that these young scholarship recipients, and their families, place on their educational journey.

SKImfi

SKImfi, or the SKI Microfinance Institute, underlines the initiative’s role in catalysing opportunity for its beneficiaries to grab.

“Providing microfinance is great, but as the institute we can only get things started. We’re just skimming the surface,” Shyam says. “We began as a small microlending institution in a corner of the world, in a corner of Africa, in a corner of Zimbabwe. Now hundreds of families are involved, communities are stabilising, and this is the beginning. We are still at the surface.”

The value of what SKImfi alone adds to a community’s productivity doesn’t compare to the bottomless mine of potential that lays in the hands of all the women who receive microloans. As women become more empowered, the spillover effects of their business success will ripple deeply through their countries’ economies.

“We provide the necessary tools to give them a foundation,” Shyam says. “They then take the deep dive and create value for themselves and their communities to meet all of that potential.”

SKI Charities

In the beginning of 2010, SKI Charities was still an abstract idea. Shyam told his NGO friends that he wanted to take microfinance to, of all places, Zimbabwe. He was met with a common warning: “Zimbabwe is too risky; it’s not worth it. Go someplace with, as they say, lower hanging fruit.”

“I always struggled with that term,” Shyam says. “I think, ‘Well, some of us are a bit taller. Shouldn’t we reach for the high-hanging fruit? Can’t we add even more value that way?’”

He continued his early due diligence with peers in the policy and finance communities. He still met resistance. They did, however, express confidence in Shyam himself. They were more compelled to invest in his endeavors than in the country alone, which is why Shyam’s initials became so integrally tied to the charity.

“I decided, ‘Alright, if people don’t believe in potential of Zimbabwe, let them believe in me.’ I’ll put my name and reputation on the organization,” Shyam says. “Let us rise or fall together. We are strong and our beneficiaries have no one else but us; what are we waiting for?”

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June 7, 2013 by SKIC | No Comments

¿Por qué Chile?

Of all the places in the world SKI Charities could extend to, you might be wondering, “Why Lebu, Chile?” In our last blog post, we talked with Shyam about his most recent travels to Lebu, where he discussed the vibrant presence of the indigenous Mapuche culture and his admiration of their hard work. How did he come to recognize this area as a perfect destination for SKI Charities?

Similar to Mutare, Zimbabwe, Lebu is a place where Shyam had a pretty strong network. A few years ago he was living in Buenos Aires doing some consulting work and from there ventured to backpack around Chile. He notes:

“Right away I felt like this was a country that was on the cusp, even more so than Zimbabwe (Chile is doing much better). What really struck a chord for me was the indigenous population in Chile. There’s a long history of complications around indigenous people here in the United States. And it’s always sort of been a part of the psyche of growing up as an American. Similarly in South America there have had some very difficult times that the indigenous people have gone through – and even in the modern era, these countries in South America don’t discuss or address the issue as we do in North America.”

Shyam contends that the indigenous people in Chile are even further behind, and with less opportunity to extricate themselves from the historical hardships they’ve encountered following the occupation and settlement from Imperial Spain. “And we can be unique in our focus on these indigenous people who are not really on the radar,” he says.

“They’re seen as different, as a different ethnicity, yet the public isn’t so focused on them. They’re sort of lumped in with the poor. And the poor are addressed at certain levels, but not enough for the amount of achievement that’s gone on in Chile. Chile is going through a huge, unprecedented economic boom. I think they’ve reached middle-income status as a nation. They are the closest to being called a ‘developed country’ as any country one would think should be called ‘developing.’ They’re doing great. Low population, huge natural resource boom, good infrastructure, good education. But then that makes the gap even bigger with those who have been left behind. So I knew we could tackle this indigenous issue.”

One of the benefits of working with these indigenous people in a country that is already on the right track is that the path is essentially paved.

“The schools are already great. If we could just get them access to the system that has already been built, they’ll be able to make that jump. In a place like Congo, if we put some people in school, there wouldn’t be proper schools for them to go to. Even in Zimbabwe, there are so few good schools that we can only put a few people into these good networks. The same goes for the trading community. In Chile, the network is there. We just need to help some of the people get plugged into it. And if we can get them plugged into it, the work is almost done. And that’s something very rare for a lot of developing countries. That’s a really important point that’s specific to Chile.”

Years after his first backpacking trip in Chile  and after establishing SKI Charities in Zimbabwe, Shyam went with his gut impressions of Lebu and tapped into the growing economic and educational infrastructure there by giving members of the indigenous Mapuche culture access to it. The environment was ripe with opportunity, already set up for people to thrive. The only thing missing was access. SKI Charities has started to provide access to those who are disenfranchised, and the result is participants who are brimming with excitement and pride – and they have their businesses and their rejuvenated communities to show for it.

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May 12, 2013 by SKIC | 1 Comment

Our Mothers, Our Inspiration

While the Grameen Bank gave SKI Charities its infrastructural model, the main impetus behind creating the organization was very personal. SKI Charities founder, Shyam K. Iyer, credits his mother for inspiring him to make the charity a reality:

“In her family, my mother is 8 of 9 kids and the older girls were just sort of married off. We have a term in much of the developing world, not ‘getting your daughter married,’ but ‘getting her married off.’ To have her become someone else’s responsibility, and be led by someone else.

By the time the family got to my mom, number 8, and her sister, number 9, the family was so exhausted with the traditions that they just let them do whatever they wanted. And when you give women like them space to do what they are capable of doing, they do great things. My mother studied hard, came to the U.S., and is now a very successful physician. She’s a role model for the community and inspiring the people all around her. I feel that if women are given this type of chance, not given an extra opportunity, just simply given a chance, women have always proven they can do great things with it.”

Through his work and travels abroad, Shyam became very sensitive to imbalances in economic status, the divide between the haves and the have-nots, and particularly the struggles of mothers. He continually observed that, in many countries, “mothers are the pillars of both family and economy but are even more disenfranchised than poor men.” These patterns were begging to be changed.

Choosing to work with female participants came from the belief that, “When you empower women and especially mothers you’re truly empowering the entire community, you’re not just empowering the individual.” Shyam tells men who inquire about the organization to “observe what women do, what our mothers, sisters and daughters do. They add to the community. They lead our families. They make our lives so much better.” Ultimately, Shyam reasons that “if you want the wealth to go further, usually the best way is through women.” He continues,

“So when any mother is empowered, when she starts to take charge, what will she do? She will grow her business, hire more people, and support more vendors. When she makes money she will emphasize her kids’ education, which of course increases the human capital of a society and is the single most important thing. She’ll also tithe more consistently to her church, strengthening the community. She will herself become more respected and be a leader to all. She will inspire her sons and daughters, encouraging these same effects on a bigger scale.”

He witnessed his own mother have a successful career and inspire so many when she was given the space to do so and hopes that in giving mothers a chance – just a chance – they will do great things. So far, this method has proven to be largely effective, with the benefits extending well beyond a single SKI Charities beneficiary. Shyam could not be more proud of the charity’s mothers, as they have not only improved their personal quality of life, but also the lives of their children, husbands, and communities at large. Just like all of our mothers, everywhere in the world. Happy Mother’s day!

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April 25, 2013 by SKIC | No Comments

Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank, an Inspiration for SKI Charities

SKI Charities founder, Shyam K. Iyer, is the first to admit that he did not invent the concept of microfinance. Nor did he pioneer the idea of extending microfinance opportunities specifically to women. Iyer comments,

“What we’re doing, we think it’s unique in the places we’ve gone, but I didn’t invent the concept of micro-finance. Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Prize Winner from Bangladesh, pioneered micro-finance on the large scale, and he focused on women – which we replicated and are tailoring for our communities.”

Iyer was inspired to structure SKI Charities much like Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank, a project that began in Jobra, Bangladesh in 1976. Touted as a “bank for the poor,” Grameen utilizes the concept of micro-finance to empower otherwise disenfranchised women. The bank does not require any collateral and focuses on a person’s potential, rather than their acquired assets. The Grameen methodology is one based on four specific principles: discipline, unity, courage and hard work.

Like any unconventional project, Grameen Bank began small. As of October 2011, however, the total number of borrowers was 8.35 million, of which 96% of them were women. Now, the bank has 2,565 branches and works in 81,379 villages. The staff totals at 22,124 individuals.

Yunus also pioneered the idea of solidarity lending, which places borrowers in 5-member groups. Though each individual is responsible for their own repayment, group members are meant to support and encourage each other’s endeavors and entrepreneurial spirit. SKI Charities adopted a similar model, Iyer comments:

“We also do solidarity lending so that they can support and monitor each other and help each other out. All of these concepts, including the idea of women, have been tested. It’s all been studied. People much brighter than me have written papers about it and done the hard research side of things.”

Treating borrowers with respect and autonomy has yielded excellent results for both the Grameen Bank and SKI Charities. The bank’s loan recovery rate is 96.67%, and so far, no SKI participant has failed to pay back her loan. “None of them have defaulted on us, which tells us that we’re doing it right for the environment that we’re in,” says Shyam.

“In fact, a lot of the women have taken me aside and said, ‘You know, you could be charging us more, it’s okay.’ Basically, we’re treating them with more standard terms. We give them a shorter time frame, we give them a month, and we do charge a very small interest rate. The reason behind the interest rate is, of course, you can’t go to any bank without an interest rate. And we’re not in the business of providing aid, we’re providing people with access to finance. So we treat them on an equal level, just like you or I going into a bank. We don’t want to receive free money, we receive a loan, with an interest rate, and we would pay that back and get these women to pay it back every month.”

Shyam contends that treating participants like empowered individuals “inspires the women and the families to work harder because they know that we respect them, that they are our equals, and that we believe it’s a community project.”

For more information and interesting facts on the Grameen Bank, click here.

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