Delta Sigma Pi :: Beta Nu Chapter :: University of Pennsylvania

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Bali Microfinance Initiative May 2008

This summer, eight students from the University of Pennsylvania will travel to Bali, Indonesia for two to three weeks to work in conjunction with The Green School, an international school in Bali, and a local microfinance institution, the Wahana Kria Putri Foundation. The mission of the Bali Microfinance Initiative (BMI) is to help develop a microfinance program at the school and to serve as consultants to the Wahana Kria Putri Foundation, by training their loan officers and evaluating the risk of their clients.

During their first week in Bali, the team will be collaborating with the Green School to build out its microfinance arm. In addition to holding its students to the highest academic standards, the School also teaches children to be environmentally conscious, entrepreneurial, and actively involved through community service. It is dedicated to helping its surrounding community by finding environmentally-safe and sustainable ways to increase their standards of living and their businesses. One such way to do this is to teach local farmers how to increase revenues through innovative projects such as implementing a biogas system in the community to save utility bills and showing them how to process their cocoa beans. By equipping them with the necessary technical skills, business savvy, and initial investment to invest in assets, we hope to better improved their lives in a way that is sustainable.

For the second half of the trip, BMI will work in conjunction with the Wahana Kria Putri Foundation (WKP), a local grass-roots organization that offers microloans to impoverished women in the local Bali region. In addition to giving financing to these women, WKP provides business support and consultation through their business solutions development division. One of WKP's biggest challenges is its continuous struggle to provide proper training to its loan officers as well as accurately evaluating the risk of its clients. Our team will aim to solve this problem. Using the tools and models we have learned in class, the Bali Microfinance Initiative will construct a training seminar that will teach the loan officers how to better manage their clients, financially and interpersonally.

For more information, please visit: www.greenschool.org, www.pennmfc.com

The Bali Microfinance Initiative is led this year by Valerie Ho, a senior in Delta Sigma Pi. Other Delta Sigma Pi brothers on the team include Alan Hsieh (Class 2008), Kristen Young (Class 2008), Nathaniel Sokol (Class 2008), Tyler Myerberg (Class 2011), and Christine Guo (Class 2010).

If you would like to learn more, please contact Valerie at vho@wharton.upenn.edu

The BMI Group
from left to right: Alan Hsieh, Kristen Young, Maneesh Singhal, Christine Guo, Vivian Chen, Valerie Ho, Vincent Lee, Daniella Mak, Nathaniel Sokol, Tyler Myerberg, Danielle Matsumoto, Julie Pearne, Mounya Sabri