We get in a taxi to ‘Smokey Mountain’ a former rubbish dump site alongside which a slum has grown up. This is the Tondo district: one of the poorest in Manila. We are joining Entrepreneurs du Monde (EdM), a French NGO specialising in microfinance, on a visit to their local partner,‘Uplift’.
In Tondo, there are about 1,000 families living in government-built temporary housing. People live in vast warehouse constructions built on two floors, with children and chickens running around, people cooking and selling food and a very loud jukebox blaring love songs into the sunshine. Official plans to convert these temporary homes into permanent housing never happened.
We meet our first microcredit clients (EdM calls them partners), both owners of tiny convenience shops – ‘sari sari’ stalls. In both cases, the loans are for 5,000 pesos, (around £63) to buy products. There is no bookkeeping material in one shop – the ‘sales invoices’ were square pieces of paper with amounts pierced onto a nail in the corner and a rolled-up, ink-smudged list turned out to be his bill for goods from the shopping mall. Uplift’s Livelihood and Development officer explained that the shopkeeper is a new borrower and that he should and would be keeping accounts, but that meanwhile that they knew and trusted him. It is clear that social capital and character analysis figures highly in the risk assessment performed by these tiny MFIs.
These loans are for 3 months with a 3% monthly interest rate and a weekly pay-back scheme. One shopkeeper is so happy with her loan she is already keen to take out another.
Walking on, we see a tiny white coffin and a makeshift shrine with an empty table and chairs planted in front of it. Frank, the director of EdM, explains that the chairs are there for people to come and pay to play cards and e
at and drink. This would enable the family to raise the money to pay for the funeral (PHP 50,000, around £700).
Lunch is in a fast food place where the French fries were particularly and oddly delicious accompanied by rather more murky package soup. High blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol are common ailments suffered by Filipinos: their love of fast food one of the legacies of the American occupation.
We then proceed by jeepney – buses converted from American army jeeps – to Navotas to visit Uplift’s San Jose branch who were holding an orientation session for new partners. Around 26 women were crammed into the room, fanning themselves and listening while the Livelihood and Development officers explained how borrowing money and repaying it works
Tags: Entrepreneurs du Monde, Frank Renaudin, microfinance, Smokey Mountain, social capital, Tondo, Uplift