Teaching

The comprehension ability of the people out here is not as developed as I am used to, so teaching them provides challenges. They are very simple, so we have to simply teach important business principles so they can understand how the concepts will benefit their business. We also have to explain it through a translator, which means we have to make sure the translator knows the concepts well enough to explain and to help answer questions they have (translators are usually teachers who know English well).

Garrett and I teach together, and we prepared for these challenges. I was so excited to teach the first day, especially because we are teaching in a new village, Amonom. The first day went better than expected. We had 75 students come to class! The lesson also went well (at least in English), and we felt that the purpose of the SEED program, which is the first lesson, was well understood.

The next time we went to teach, the class dropped to about 30 students, and has slowly decreased each time. The huge drop was because the people realized that we weren’t giving free money, and the drop was a very good thing. Having the students narrow down themselves makes our job easier when we are deciding who are worthy candidates for a loan.

We have had a rough time trying to make our class understand the importance of being on time to learn the entire lesson. Many think if they just show up, the check mark is what will get them the loan. We have been keeping a close eye on the attendance so we can weed out the people with that mindset quickly. Of course, we encourage everybody to continue to come to class, even though they may not qualify for the loan. The people are motivated by the money, manifested through questions like, “Are we getting closer to the money?” It is exciting to finally have the opportunity for credit, but a loan can be disabling if given to a person with the wrong mindset. We can already tell the people that are mature enough to understand the purpose of a loan, and I am excited we are getting closer to the money to give to the students who are already starting to stand out.

-JD