In her sophomore year, International Affairs and Human Services student Sarah Elmes immersed herself into the world of micro-credit when she participated in the Social Enterprise Institute’s Field Study Program in the Dominican Republic and Belize. While on the program, Sarah had the opportunity to experience first-hand the successes and challenges of micro-finance. Now a fourth year with a minor in Global Social Entrepreneurship, Sarah shares her most recent experience as she returns from spending a year abroad in Costa Rica working for Oikocredit, one of the world’s largest micro-financiers which provides private funding to MFIs.
In December of 2010, Sarah was preparing for her study abroad with the International Center for Development Studies in Costa Rica when attended the Social Enterprise Lecture Series where she met Terry Provance, the Executive Director of Oikocredit USA. As she began her semester abroad at ICDS, Sarah felt relatively ‘cocooned professionally’, despite being able to navigate a country with no street names. While her study program at ICDS encouraged participating in traditional community service experience, Sarah took the initiative to challenge herself professionally by contacting Oikocredit’s country office. As a part time volunteer, Sarah helped her office mates with whatever was needed, from writing case studies to translating documents. While volunteering at Oikocredit, she became passionate about the organization’s emphasis on investing in people. “At Oikocredit they are not just giving, but really investing in creating opportunities,” says Sarah.
When Sarah’s program at ICDS ended, she was not quite ready to leave. Sarah returned just long enough to coordinate the creation of her own international co-op. By July 2011, Sarah had returned to Costa Rica and began to work at Oikocredit’s regional office for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean where she worked for the Social Performance Management and Capacity Building team. Sarah was responsible for measuring the social impact of financial investment and surveying project partners, where she analyzed the data provided by the Social Performance Management tools .
While most of her work was based in the offices in San José, Sarah had opportunities to engage in fieldwork and accompany loan officers on visits to clients. On a visit to Fundebase, a local microfinance institution based in San José, Sarah had the opportunity to visit clients in Puriscal where she was surprised by the diversity of projects that Fundabase helps to finance, from tourist lodges to pig farming.
Sarah remarks that the most striking aspect of her time with Oikocredit was the experience that she had with her fellow staff mates. “Some days on my co-op, I realized how naïve I sometimes felt when surrounded by these professionals who have dedicated their whole lives to micro-credit and I had barely heard about it a few years ago. It fills you with a lot of respect for these people and their dedication.”
