ASODENIC Week 2 Update
Things are going a bit better in Managua than they were last week. We now have a good idea of what we’ll be doing the rest of the time with ASODENIC, and neither of us is sick! Katy and I have spent most of last week and this week preparing the preventive health capataciones (trainings/lessons) for ASODENIC’s clients. Our primary job will be to present these capataciones to the various bancos de confianza and grupos solidarios both in Managua and further out.
ASODENIC is a microfinance organization helping the poorest people of Managua and other surrounding pueblos. This organization strongly emphasizes Christian values and the idea of client transformation—socially, economically, and spiritually. Clients, or poor Nicaraguans (mainly women) who have a small business, create bancos de confianza of 25-30 people who live in the same geographic area. ASODENIC provides loans to the clients, who are then expected to pay back this loan according to a pre-set schedule. The bancos de confianza meet once a week with representatives of ASODENIC, and a capatación (lesson) is usually provided byASODENIC for the women. Topics can vary from business management to Bible study, but ASODENIC has recently decided to emphasize preventive health issues.
ASODENIC had lessons already made for cervical cancer, breast cancer, acute respiratory diseases, and acute diarrheal diseases when we arrived. A group of BIOE 260 students from Rice had rewritten several of these lessons to better cover these subjects, but ASODENIC has been hesitant to listen to these suggestions because many of the lessons are in English and do not follow exactly the format of their capataciones. Katy and I are doing our best to translate and rewrite the BIOE 260 lessons because we believe that these lessons will help to improve the ones that ASODENIC currently has.
Katy and I were able to lead our first capatación this past Tuesday at the Ciudad Jardín sucursal (branch), which is a short walk down the street. We presented our lesson on cervical cancer to 4 grupos solidarios, which consisted of 14 women and 1 man who were from areas around Ciudad Jardín. While the clients started out quiet and unwilling to talk, they were laughing and having fun and engaging in the topic by midway through. It was great to start our capatación career with an energetic group of people from the middle of Managua, because as we learned from our capatación in a more rural area today, the women in rural areas are much more timid and less willing to volunteer responses. While we did not crash and burn today, there was significantly less interaction. The women appeared to be interested and enjoying themselves; they just didn’t want to talk!
Katy and I will spend the rest of today and parts of next week rewriting the capatación on diarrheal diseases. Next week will largely be a traveling week, and we will be giving 2-4 capataciones per day on cervical cancer and breast cancer. This weekend, we’re planning to stay in Managua on Saturday to continue our exploration of the city and then travel to León on Sunday to enjoy a tourist town and to see another city in Nicaragua.