ASAP Student Interns

Alliance of Students Against Poverty (ASAP) believes that it is difficult for many people in the developed world to understand the reality of those living in extreme poverty until they see it firsthand.  Accordingly, ASAP provides numerous opportunities for students to witness extreme poverty, including the ASAP internship program.

The internship program gives university students the opportunity to spend a summer working with an ASAP partner that is fighting to eradicate extreme poverty in the developing world.  Interns provide a great service to ASAP’s partner organizations by performing ethnographic interviews of women living in extreme poverty and recording their stories through audio, video, and photography.  These interviews focus on how our partner organizations have benefited the lives of the women. 

In order to communicate effectively with the clients, each intern pairs up with a local student, who serves as a partner and interpreter.  Throughout the intern’s time in country, he/she is responsible for keeping a daily journal of his/her experience.  These journals include the written story of each client as well as the intern’s thoughts, feelings and daily activities. 

The clients’ stories and media files are given to the partner organizations to be shared with donors as well as to promote their programs and client success stories.  In addition, ASAP interns share the stories with friends and family to educate them on the lives of those living in extreme poverty and inspire them to act.  ASAP also uses the stories and journals collected by interns on its website to educate and inspire students throughout the world.

The following students are those that participated in the 2008 Summer Internships: 

Summer 2008

Name: Constantino Rago
School: New York University
Country: Haiti
Program: Fonkoze-CLM

Name: Brock Smith
School: UC-Davis
Country: Bangladesh
Program: BRAC-TUP

Name: Humay Guliyeva
School: Columbia University
Country: Bolivia
Program: Pro Mujer

Name: John Eder
School: UNC
Country: Ethiopia
Program: MTW-SIM Project

Name: Ava Shapiro
School: Columbia University
Country: Guatemala
Program: Friendship Bridge

Name: Boston McConnaughey
School: Brigham Young University
Country: Haiti
Program: Fonkoze-CLM

Name: Rodrigo Garza
School: UNC
Country: Bolivia
Program: Pro Mujer

Constantino Rago

I’m currently pursuing a Masters in Political Economics at NYU where I also received my B.A. in International Relations in 2008. I was born in Argentina, but have lived most of my life in small town Bethel, CT.

The ASAP summer internship took me to rural Haiti, specifically Twoudino, Boukankare, and Lagonav, the three regions where Fonkoze, Haiti’s largest MFI, had chosen to realize their pilot ultra-poor program, Chemin Lavi Miyo (CLM). Representing some of the poorest people in Haiti, the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, the members of this program had been most of their lives without a sturdy home, clothes to put on their children, or enough food to adequately fill their hunger. Our job was to interview these women, at the time 14 months into the 18 month TUP program, and try to capture how their lives have been changed by the opportunities given to them through CLM. On a typical day, we would wake up with the sun, have breakfast with the staff on site, and trail behind the case managers as they went door to door checking in with the CLM members and their families. In some cases, this involved a simple drive by pick-up to the villages, in others it was a more involved hour-long hike simply to reach one family, and in some rare cases it was a combination of the two plus the occasional river crossing. We would get through, on average, 3 women per day. In the afternoon, the staff would all meet back up for dinner, some down time, and then, lacking access to electricity, as the sun set, so did we.

I will be honest, the internship was not what I expected, at least in how I thought it would affect me while I was there. I had studied development and poverty in my undergrad, and knew roughly how it affects the lives of people both physically and emotionally in the impoverished communities of the world. But I also knew that being so intimately close to it would be something I couldn’t prepare for. The best way I can put it is that I was shocked at how un-shocked I was. Despite the misery that was so apparent in the conditions in which these families struggled to get by, they did not feel sorry for themselves, and so I felt I shouldn’t either. Perhaps I was unknowingly distancing myself from the women, interviewer and interviewee, trying to maintain a calculated approach to the development challenges I was witnessing. It’s still something I’m struggling to understand myself.

Brock Smith

I grew up in Denver and attended the University of Colorado, where I graduated with a BS in Electrical Engineering in 2004. In 2005/06 I earned a Masters Degree in finance from the University of Bradford in the UK. After working for a year and a half in Denver as a mortgage analytics associate, in Fall 2008 I entered the Economics PhD program at the University of California, Davis. My focus will be in development economics.

In 2008 I was selected into the ASAP internship program. I spent the month of July in various parts of Bangladesh. I mostly worked with “Building Resources Across Communities” (BRAC), the largest NGO in the world. I spent a week in one of the rural provinces of Bangladesh visiting BRAC’s “Targeting Ultra-Poor” (TUP) program. TUP members are typically too poor for microfinance, and instead receive assets such as cows and goats, along with training on how to care for and maintain the asset. I later visited another NGO (called GoUF for short) involved in microfinance and information services for poor villages. Through GoUF I visited a “Kawra” village, whose inhabitants are Hindu pig-rearers that are likely the poorest, most excluded segment of the Bangladeshi population.

Being my first visit to a developing country, I learned a great deal about microfinance, NGOs, and development in general. As I begin scholarly work on developing countries, I am thankful to have seen extreme poverty, and a few of the approaches addressing it, first-hand.  I was particularly moved by my visit to the Kawra community, and am currently involved in linking ASAP with GoUF to raise funds for their fledgling Kawra-assistance project.

John Eder

Humble Business Development

Over the summer, I volunteered with an NGO specializing in HIV/AIDS treatment and support.  This organization realized that with the advent of Anti-Retro Viral drugs their women have regain strength and wish to work again.  Our small team of MBAs and business professionals worked with them to develop an income generation component within their Mission.  The core of this mission was adapted within two months and we even had our first order come in for a new product opportunity.

Through this I grew professionally:

• I gained an understanding of how to achieve a cultural change through converging a team on a concise mission statement and values.
• I learned how a healthy organization can undertake change rapidly to adapt to the new needs of their clients.  This NGO’s spirit of warmth and kindness serves as a foundation for allowing innovative approaches, like ours, to work well.
• I saw the incredible power of a well defined mission that people believe in.  We had potential partners coming to us in droves and going out of their way to help our women.

I also grew spiritually:

• The kindness and humility of these women living on less than a dollar a day and surviving with HIV somehow passed through them to me.  I find myself chuckling at some things I use to do in the US, like the need to use a Britta filter on perfectly clean tap water.  And, I feel profoundly grateful for the opportunity to eat every day, and to enjoy a variety of food options.
• This also reinforced my belief in following what feels appropriate for me.  While many of my colleagues went to Wall Street and made big salaries, I spent all the money in my bank account for this opportunity without fully understanding the returns on the investment.  If I had done an ROI calculation, then I probably would have missed this wonderful opportunity.  Given my personal financial constraints, the support of grants from the Alliance of Students Against Poverty (ASAP) and UNC’s Kenan Institute (KI) literally made the trip possible. 
• I found within myself that I enjoy sharing kindness with people.  This reshaped the way I look at business and who I choose to engage in my opportunities.  Now, as I look out at starting my company I am looking for kind people who instinctively offer those with less opportunity a chance.

Exploring the value
The value from this experience is hard to quantify immediately.  Yet, I feel the whole opportunity shifted my world perspective.  I found myself wondering after the experience “could I possibly have asked for a more ideal summer internship?”  The planning and people involved were that nice.

Ava Shapiro

I attended Barnard College, Columbia University and graduated in May 2008 with a BA in Political Science and Art History. I focused on Comparative Politics and studied development as well. In my four years I had the opportunity to travel and work in many different facets in Central and South America. When I was a senior I became involved in the Columbia University Microfinance Working Group, where I learned about the opportunity to travel with ASAP.

In July 2008, I spent the month in Panajachel, Guatemala where I worked with the non-profit microfinance organization, Friendship Bridge. I spent the month visiting different "Trust Banks" that women organized in villages surrounding Lake Atitlan. During the meetings the program officer from Friendship Bridge gave the women different workshops on women's empowerment, business development, and other educational subjects. I also interviewed women in the group in order to better understand their experience working with the women in their group, their previous access to loans and capital, their experience of borrowing from Friendship Bridge, and their aspirations for the future of their families and businesses.

Interestingly, I also interviewed women who were not a part of Friendship Bridge and explored the reasons why they chose not to or were excluded from the lending process. The most common responses were that they did not have information about the lending program or they believed that they would not be able to pay back the loan. Often, women who formed "trust banks" would not openly extend the invitation for their neighbors to join their group, thus leaving them out of the lending circle.

The interviews allowed me to explore both the profound benefits that microfinance can have on individuals in the developing world, as well as some of the challenges that women face in understanding and using their loans. It seems that an education system regarding loan use is a necessity in order for the women to succeed. Overall, my experience with Friendship Bridge served as an incredibly educational and stimulating experience, allowing me to explore economic development through a new lens.

Boston McConnaughey

My name is Boston McConnaughey, I am a junior at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.  I am currently a Media Arts Studies major (emphasis in Film) with a Japanese Minor.  I am originally from the Massachusetts south shore area in a town called Duxbury, however I recently lived for two years in Japan.

On my internship with ASAP I went to Haiti and stayed in various locations throughout the country between July 20th and August 15th.  We worked very closely with the head of a special program within the Fonkoze Microcredit Bank called CLM (Chemen Lavi Miyo or the Pathway to a Better Life) Program.  This was a pilot program modeled after a "Targeting the Ultra-Poor Program" headed up by BRAC in Bangladesh.  Our liaison led us to the three target areas where the program was in full swing.  There we spent about a week in each location meeting with women who were "clients" selected for the program. 

On a typical day we interviewed anywhere from 1-6 women, also over the term of our stay we talked with case managers of the program and other clerical officials for Fonkoze's CLM program.  In an interview we asked the major cuases of their situation as they saw it, and specifically how the program had affected their lives.

I was changed in a number of ways.  I understood very differently than I had before how people can make a better life for one another.  Large programs like the one we were working with can save lives, families, neighborhoods, and potentially nations as long as the focus remains simple.  People need fundamental resources like food and water, but they also need to understand fundamental elements of life, like work and opportunity.  Money was only the catalyst for these women to achieve greater, deeper personal growth.  I began to understand how I as a student in a very comfortable community in America can reach out and give hope to the hopeless, and be a friend to the friendless.  That's something I will treasure with me for the rest of my life.

Rodrigo Garza

This past summer I was fortunate to witness the positive impact that Pro Mujer, a global microfinance institution, has on its clients’ lives in Bolivia. Providing women with micro-credit and basic health care for themselves and their family, Pro Mujer has improved not only its client’s living conditions but also their self-esteem and domestic role.

Through interviews and focus groups, I was able to learn first-hand about the struggles and hurdles that these women, mostly indigenous, have to face. In addition to increase my awareness of the harsh conditions in which a big part of people live in this beautiful country, such exposure also instilled in me a sense of social responsibility and a commitment to help people improve life for themselves and their family. This commitment will be a major driver during my second year in Business School at UNC and in my professional career. Furthermore, this experience confirmed my belief of microfinance as an excellent path toward alleviating poverty.

Share and Save

Tag on del.icio.us
Add to Facebook
Digg It!
Add to Google Bookmarks
Add to Yahoo! Bookmarks
Reddit