Plenty with a little

The Plenty office opened up again on jan 3rd after a nice long holiday break. Upon arriving at the office Gary and Mark had a project for me, an EU grant proposal. It was exactly what I had asked to do, but still sounded a bit daunting. Initially just talking about Mark's idea for the project I was suppose to ask for half a million USD! My current net worth that's a lot of money, and then I starting to think a lot about money... First let me give you the 2 second version of the proposal. We are asking to set up a nationwide women's business network and as an initial pilot for the network set up a food processing supply chain, of canning salsa here in the Toledo district. All aspects of the project would be run by women from the farming of the produce, the canning and processing right to the sales and marketing. This project would also then put in place the infrastructure for other women's enterprises to get started or further developed.
It seems like if this project were to get started it would do a lot for economic develop in Toledo (the poorest district in the country with a poverty rate of 46.4%) and Belize as a whole.
The impact 500Gs would have here hurts my head a little when I think about it too much. Thats the cost of sending 2 kids to BU and here you could lift hundreds of women out of poverty! If only it were that simple: send money->get rid of poverty but it's clear that's not how the world works. This is the reason that humanitarian aid has come into such scrutiny lately. Of course I could write much more on that subject but that's not the point right now. It's been humbling to witness so many people working so hard to improve the lives of others. It shows what money in the right hands can do. It takes planning, patience and foresight, from both the funders and the recipients. Plenty has an amazing staff that are skillful navigating through all the red tape, getting at the money and using it skillfully to create innovative development projects. Lots can be learned from these small scale, efficient NGOs as to how to improve the aid system. They are getting stuff done here and people should start looking.

More to come on my recent travels and heading home
Love
Mariel