A New Chapter: Leaving Colorado

Wow, so BAM I think it finally hit me that I am leaving the country. As I sit here in the Hong Kong airport surrounded by foreign sounds, smells, views and languages I am finally realizing that I am not in Colorado anymore. It was difficult for me to leave the mountainous region I have called my home for the last 6 years. It was a place I really felt comfortable. Although what can I say, I left it for quite the adventure. 

3 days after my return from Uganda I packed up my car, shipped a few boxes and my mom flew out to Denver. We packed in and drove across the northern part of the United States. It was my first time discovering the land that lay between  the two homes that I have known and really interesting to see how the country functions while our cities sleep. Some may argue that our cities are the hubs for industry, human capital, and trade and while they may offer that connection between America and the rest of the world, middle america contains the arteries and veins that keep our country alive. SO much corn...I mean so much corn. While I heard stories it is nothing until you drive through corn for 2 days straight that you realize just how much corn. The highways are lined with trucks that drive through the night making life possible in even the most remote regions of the country. So much happens while I sleep. So much I never really took the time to think about before. 

This trip was really good for me it put many of the cities in perspective where I couldn't really think about it before. Anyway, after arriving in Boston I barely had enough time to catch up with my family and pack my bags to set off on the next adventure and here I am now in the Hong Kong airport trying to process the last few weeks. 2 weeks ago I was in Uganda (feeling kinda guilty about my massive carbon footprint). Wow.  When I am catching up on sleep in a few years I will look back on this time period as a crazy action packed adventure and it is only yet to begin.

Women, Hope, and Microfinance in Northern Uganda

I think I can say that Gulu, Uganda was one of the poorest areas of the world I have ever visited. Recovering from a 20 year war, northern Uganda is a mess of displaced people, large and small NGOs, and rampant poverty. During my visit there I was working for a non-profit organization, The Women's Global Empowerment Fund that works to bring microfinance opportunities to women in Gulu. I have to say that during my time with this organization I was extremely impressed with the work that they were doing on this micro level. When it comes down to the individual, meeting and interview and following these women around I was awestruck with how much this tiny amount of money that they were borrowing had changed their entire world.  I highly recommend the book The Challenge for Africa by Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai, which I read while traveling. It addresses some of these questions.

Working with WGEFund really made me look around at all of the big NGO's in the area bouncing around in their SUV's. With so much bureaucracy do you have this same micro effect of creating change on the individual level? Do people feel like have a hand in the reformation of their country or does it feel like someone borrows their way in and takes control? How do you measure change on an individual level if you are only looking at broad statistics? 
I had a difficult time here trying to deal with the role of the international community in creating change. One thing I really liked about WGEF was that except for the Executive director in Denver every other staff person was from Gulu on the ground working. I learned about how important it is to build relationship with the local community and how finding trust worthy people to manage tasks is more important than the task its self.
This job also reaffirmed my belief in microfinance as a means for change. In interviewing these women I learned that there are certainly some models that work better than others. The idea of having a for profit institution that does microfinance is blasphemous. Some of the WGEFund clients were telling me that before they had heard of WGEFund they had tried going  other microfinance organizations but they had  many fees or they wouldn't give them a loan without their husband's permission or the loan rates were really high. WGEFund gave them a loan that same day that they walked in and after 2 years of work WGEFund has served over 900 women and have a 100% loan repayment rate.

Basically I was very impressed with this line of work. As you can see I have spread the photos throughout the site here and I also have the final promotional video for the organization which can be viewed here to see more you can check out my website www.jessicaalderman.com and there should be some more posted soon!