New Job, New Description

I was thinking that some of you might be wondering what I'm actually doing here. Besides providing semi-entertaining stories of living in Cameroon, I actually have a job description that I thought I would share. The description itself is very very broad, I have alot of flexiblitly to choose who I want to work with, what I feel is nessesary to work on, etc. And the final note about all of this.. I've just started, this is just the general idea/goal.

I am a Small Enterprise Development Volunteer, SED for short, and enterprise is obviously just another word for business. I'm assigned to work with a Microfinance Bank, MC2 in the East Province of Cameroon. Microfinance in the developing world is very successful. An individual becomes a member, invests in the bank by buying shares, and has the ability to take out loans with little collateral. Access to credit = development. The MC2's here are very new, some only a few years old, and for a bank primarly giving out loans, it's risky and challenging. As a SED volunteer, I'll be looking at their procedures and making recommendations for improvement. Hopefully this will include working on increasing repayment rates, improving accounting systems, and increasing loan outreach especially to farmers and to people in villages. The MC2s are also trying out offering health insurance, something I would really like to work on just because it's not common and the idea of it is difficult to understand.

Through working with the bank I'll hopefully meet entreprenuers that I'll be able to guide the way on business start-up. The same goes with business owners that I'm able to advise with accounting, marketing, and operations of their business. I'll also try and encourange linkages and cross-sector collaboration with the businesses, non-govermental organizations, markets,and community groups to increase a more efficeient business community, increase information sharing etc.

All of this is great, but since I'm not living here forever, it's not sustainable. It's important for me to identify people in my community, that will be able to learn and carry on consulting in business start-up and management. This goal is probably one of the harder ones for volunteers to achieve. It's easier and quicker to do things ourselves, instead of teaching someone else to do it.
I'll also be teaching business classes. Most likely in a small village about an hour away to groups of women. Apparently there's a catholic convent out there were I can stay while I'm teaching the classes. Traveling to a place and back in a day, even if it's only an hour away, well it's just better not to.

Alot of the work mentioned above is really focused on women and youth. Helping with career planning, emphasising savings and credit, business and life skills, are all important. None of these things have to be in a formal setting either. People always, always ask what I'm doing here. I bought paint the other day at this hardware sort of store, the owner asked me what I do, and I gave him a super condensed version of what I just told you. He didn't give me a receipt for the stuff I bought, which led to a converstation about bookkeeping. Viola.

Pretty broad description right? Oh yeah and this is all in french by the way. Piece of cake... ha. Wish me luck, my first day is on Monday!