Women's Microfinance Initiative

WMI has internship opportunities available both in Bethesda and in Buyobo, Uganda on a rolling basis. Seniors in high school, college students and graduates students are invited to apply.

Buyobo: Internships in Buyobo are for 30 - 90 days. Interns live in Bulambuli village and meals are provided by women in the loan program at no cost to the interns. Housing is also provided in the village at no cost to the intern. WMI volunteers live under the same conditions as the villagers - there is no running water and no electricity. Interns must arrange for their own transportation to and from Uganda.

Once in Bulambuli, interns will provide a variety of support services for the WMI program. They will assist with automating records, training WMI personnel on the computer and on certain programs like Excel and Word, tutor school age children in reading, writing and simple math, help borrowers with their book keeping, interview and compose borrower profiles, take photos and make videos of loan program activities.

Bethesda: Internships in Bethesda are a minimum of 3 months and include working with borrower files, updating web site information, preparing loan documents, and other support services.

TO INQUIRE: Please e-mail us if you are interested in an internship position: wmicontact@gmail.com

News

Summer Internship Trip to Uganda

The Walt Whitman High School students have returned from their Summer Internship Trip to Uganda. Check out their first slideshow with pictures from their trip and find out about their experiences during their 3 weeks in Uganda.

Meet the Bethesda 2010 Summer Interns:

These fabulous college students (and two recent graduates) are compiling survey data from the past year and undertaking extensive statistical analysis of the information gathered. They are using the SAS JMP software, graciously supplied gratis by SAS in Cary, NC. This year SAS has provided WMI with professional staff support, including a custom tailored webinar where all of the interns could view and manipulate the data. In addition, the interns are updating the web site, improving WMI's photo and video files and creating new media layouts, linking to social media, organizing foundation information, preparing grant applications and reaching out to other non-profits. WMI is extremely fortunate to have such a talented, productive and committed summer intern staff. We are grateful for all of their hard work.

Alex Chernow (Bethesda, Maryland): Alex is a rising sophomore at New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she is concentrating in Cultural Analysis and Travel Writing. Alex will be studying in Ghana during the fall semester of this year and will write about her study abroad experiences in the NYU paper.

Laura Esposito (Bethesda, Maryland): Laura will be entering her senior year at New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She is concentrating in International Development and studied in Madrid, Spain this past semester. Last summer, she traveled to El Salvador for a weeklong service trip and participates in NYU's Habitat for Humanity and Journal of Global Affairs.

Ellen Janssen (Noordwijk, Netherlands and McLean, Virginia): Ellen will be a rising junior at the UVA, majoring in Economics. She is interested in development studies and spent this past spring semester in Pune, India. At UVA, Ellen is a member of the Alpha Phi Omega community service fraternity, the UVA ballroom dancing team, and the Cinemateque Committee, which hosts movie screenings on campus.

Valerie McDonald (Herndon, Virginia): Valerie is a rising junior at the UVA, majoring in International Economics and minoring in Global Culture and Commerce. She plans to go into microfinance as a career - her favorite part of microfinance is that although it is an economic process, it addresses many other problems in developing countries indirectly. In her spare time, Valerie participates in ballroom dancing at UVA and enjoys reading and horseback riding.

Glynnis McIntyre (Raleigh, North Carolina): Glynnis is a rising junior at American University in Washington, D.C., with a major in International Studies, concentration in International Development, and minor in Global Health and Development. She is the Fundraising Chair for AU's St. Jude's Up 'Til Dawn event and Vice President of Panhellenic for AU's chapter of Delta Gamma. Glynnis plans on studying abroad in Paris during the spring semester and hopes to work for an organization that provides development projects for underdeveloped countries.

Laurel Rigsbee (Woodbury, Minnesota): Laurel will be a senior at Occidental College in Los Angeles this fall, majoring in Economics with a minor in Russian. Laurel has played both softball and rugby at college and she spent the fall of her junior year studying in St. Petersburg, Russia. She is interested in developmental economics and intends to pursue a career that would allow her to work internationally.

Montana Stevenson (Bethesda, Maryland): Montana just graduated from UVA, with a major in History and a minor in Economics. This is her third summer interning at WMI and she likes that the WMI model provides the borrowers with the ability to control their own economic opportunities. Montana helped issue the first WMI loans in 2008 and will lead the Walt Whitman High School internship trip this summer. She'll return to Uganda in the fall to conduct a joint WMI/PostBank rural banking study and prepare transition guidelines for borrowers graduating to independent banking. She enjoys swimming and basketball, and is a coach for the Carderock Springs Swim Team.

Victoria Stevenson (Bethesda, Maryland): This fall, Victoria will be a sophomore at Tufts University in Boston. She traveled to Buyobo in January 2008 to help issue the first set of loans to WMI borrowers and hopes to return this coming winter. She is also a swim coach for the Carderock Springs Swim Team, trains for the Tufts Boston Marathon Team and writes for the Tufts Daily Newspaper.

Summer 2010 - Buyobo

Montana Stevenson, UVA '10 will lead a group of 12 students from Walt Whitman High School, Bethesda, MD in an internship in Buyobo, Uganda during July/August, 2010. The interns will set up an Internet Caf© in the village with lap tops donated by Discovery Communications. They will also tutor students at the Buyobo Primary School and work on improving the school facilities and educational resources.

Click here for full details.

January 2010 - Buyobo Interns

In January 2010, Alex Richardson, a sophomore at Oberlin College, travelled to Buyobo with WMI President Robyn Nietert and Advisory Board Member Denis Kalule to assist with the first major loan issue of the year and to help transition the first WMI borrowers to bank loans with PostBank Uganda. Alex was also in charge of photography and videography for the trip, documenting the progress the loan program has made in just two short years. He caught the enthusiasm of the entire village in his video of the ladies' parade to the Trading Center to celebrate the loan program's second anniversary and the graduation of the first borrowers to bank loans.

Check out his work posted on the WMI web site at:

Winter 2009/2010 - Buyobo Interns

In December 2009, Margot van der Vossen from Bethesda, MD (Walt Whitman high school alum) and Brian Miller from Rochester, NY, traveled to Buyobo to spend six weeks interning for WMI. Equipped with an M.A. in International Relations in Diplomacy International Studies from Leiden University - the Netherlands (Margot) and a Master's Degree in Math, Science, and Technology Education from St. John Fisher College, in Rochester, NY (Brian), they focused on developing WMI's fledgling youth tutoring program and helping the ladies with loan program procedures.

Having brought over 1,000 donated children's books with them, Brian and Margot expanded WMI's children's library, and continued the tutoring program introduced by interns Danica Castraith and Tobin Jones in May 2009. They also set up a PTSA/educational committee to take charge of the tutoring programs and other educational endeavors, turning over all duties and responsibilities to a community-member committee.

Through their meetings with solar power providers in Kampala, Margot and Brian were able to do comprehensive cost-comparisons for solar lighting options. They brought several demo solar products to Buyobo with them, and villagers were excited to learn about these new options. While traveling through Sironko, Margot and Brian met almost all of he loan program clients and were able to develop information about their living standards and how the program had improved their lives.

Thanks to extremely generous donations from WMI supporters, the 1000+ books that Margot and Brian added to the library generated much excitement throughout the village. Parents expressed their gratitude for helping their children develop valuable reading skills, and were immensely happy to see their children spending their free time reading. The books were very useful in the tutoring program, particularly the non-fiction, as they help fill the void of science and history educational resources at the local public school.

Margot and Brian spent as much time as they could getting to know the people of Buyobo. Brian spent many of his evenings playing soccer with the local young men, and Margot got to know the children and other spectators, chatting about everything from favorite Champions League teams to American politics to the upcoming elections in Uganda.

Both Brian and Margot are optimistic that the economy of the Buyobo region will continue to grow and expand through the businesses made possible by the WMI loan program. They saw how the women borrowers are better able to feed their families, obtain medical care for household members and pay school fees for their children though the income they earn and money they save.

Check out the links below for more information about Margot and Brian's work and the tutoring program.

Summer 2009 - Buyobo Interns

Tobin Jones and Danica Straith, juniors at McGill University, spent most of May and early June 2009 interning with WMI in Buyobo, Uganda. Their stay there was enormously helpful to building the WMI program. After numerous trips to Mbale and innumerable hours tinkering with Olive Wolimbwa, the Local Program Director's lap top computer, they were able to install a modem and get her hooked up with wireless Internet access. This was huge step forward for the WMI program. Olive can now send e-mails and communicate via the Internet without having to travel the 2 hours to Mbale by bus and without having to wait in line at the local Internet Café.

Tobin and Dani worked on automating the WMI records and provided Olive with Excel spreadsheet training. Olive has been attending computer training school and with Dani and Tobin with her for a month, she made rapid progress.

The interns launched the WMI tutoring program with 40 children for an hour each day. They reported that the children were angels and eager for the help with their schoolwork. WMI provided notebooks, pencils and some simple workbooks. The woman paid 1,000 shillings per week for each child - which is about 50 cents. We believe that the improvement programs that WMI launches must be working toward sustainability. The small fee helped support the program and it helped the women put a value and spending priority on education for their children. The tutoring program will continue in the fall.

They photographed a number of women in the loan program and helped them develop biographies detailing how the loan program has changed their lives. Check out their work on the WMI web site.

Summer 2009 - Bethesda Interns

WMI summer interns in Bethesda, Maryland undertook a comprehensive statistical analysis project of borrowers in the WMI loan program. Utilizing the data provided by borrowers in semi-annual surveys, the interns created the first comprehensive profile of WMI borrowers and the first assessment of the impact of the loan program. Their research provided direction on where and how to expand the loan program, insight into additional services that will increase borrowers' capacity, and contributed to the limited body of original research on the impact of microfinance programs.

SAS, Inc. in Cary, NC provided JMP statistical software free of charge to the WMI interns. They used the software to create charts and graphs to show such information as how impoverished the loan recipients are, how many of them have someone with malaria in their families and how many are caring for AIDS orphans. Being able to depict the information through graphs and charts conveys an easily understood visual of the borrowers' living standards and the immediate impact WMI loans have on their lives. The fact books that the interns created have proven to be a valuable resource for foundations and corporations that want to support WMI and they have made a valuable contribution to the body of literature measuring the impact of access to financial services for the poor.

Check out the interns' work on the WMI web site:

Bryan Norris - a senior at Davidson College in North Carolina. During the summer of 2008 he interned on Capitol Hill in the offices of U.S. Representatives Sue Meryick and John M. Spratt, Jr. He arranged TV and radio interviews, attended House committee hearings and votes on the house floor, engaged in correspondence with constituents, and gave US Capitol tours. He is an Eagle Scout and organized a program to supply AIDS home-based treatment kits for 250 affected families in Malawi. Since 2008, he has tutored at Ada Jenkins Center LEARNworks and has been an editor of the Perspectives section for the Davidsonian, a campus newspaper.

David Jaffe - lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland and is currently attending Wheaton College in Norton, Mass., where he is majoring in Studio Arts. David is integrating WMI's media products and revamping the WMI website.

Laura Van Oudenaren - lives in Bethesda, Maryland and is a senior at Davidson College in North Carolina. She has volunteered with an after-school tutoring program called Ada Jenkins Center LEARNworks since her freshman year, and has been an editor for the Davidsonian, a campus newspaper. In the summer of 2005 and 2006 she spent time volunteering on the Three Affiliated Tribes Reservation in North Dakota through a program called Running Strong that focuses on improving living situations for Native American Youth. During the 2008 fall semester she went to Cameroon to study French and Economic Development.

Alex Richardson - will be a sophomore at Oberlin College. He is working with WMI on it's statistical analysis of Borrower data. His family is relocating to Uganda this summer and he will be interning in Buyobo, in August 2009, where he will assist with automating WMI records.

Elizabeth Scroggs - lives in Silver Spring, Maryland and is a junior at Tulane University in New Orleans. At Tulane she is involved in a tutoring program called Tulane Afterschool Enrichment (TAE). An educational trip to El Salvador through CRISPAZ in 2006 inspired her continued involvement in international development. She started her internship here at WMI in the June 2009.

Montana M. Stevenson - lives in Bethesda, Maryland and is a senior in the Echols Scholars Program at the University of Virginia. She has participated in outreach and education programs sponsored by Heifer Project (rural Massachusetts), Running Strong (focusing on Native Americans in North Dakota), and CRIZPAZ in El Salvador. During the 2007 - 2008 academic year she served as an intern at the Women's Resource Center at UVA. She is a member of Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church. Montana traveled to Uganda and assisted with the Program Launch in January 2008.

Victoria Stevenson - live in Bethesda, Maryland and is starting her Freshmen year at TUFTS University in Boston. Victoria specializes in supporting the interns in their work with WMI.

Spring 2009 - Bethesda

Jessie McComb - is a candidate for a Master's of Tourism Administration at GWU and holds a B.A. dual degree in Art History/Physics from Hamilton College in NY. She currently is the Graduate Assistant to Dr. Hawkins in the Department of Tourism and Hospitality at GWU. From 2004 - 2008 she served in various capacities, including Services Manager, Programs & New Business, for the Artisan Market. During her tenure at the Artisan Market she: developed and implemented a market survey for heritage tourism product development in South Africa, Mozambique and Angola; coordinated logistics for training programs; developed a strategic plan for tourism related development programs; managed new business opportunities across the department; designed and managed economic development programs related to the crafts sector; wrote proposals and created budgets for government and private funding opportunities; and researched US and foreign government and private funding opportunities.

Summer 2008 - Bethesda

Jennifer Holland - Wellesley College - '11

Daniel Van Oudenaren - Davidson College - '08

Hart W. Wood - Mary Washington University - '10

Montana M. Stevenson - The Echols Scholars Program at the University of Virginia - '10

Victoria Stevenson - Walt Whitman High-School - '09

Summer 2008 - Buyobo

Hart Wood, a junior at Mary Washington College in Virginia, traveled to Buyobo in July 2008 to help with WMI's third and fourth loan issue. It was the first time WMI had gone from issuing 20 loans at a time to issuing 40 loans at a time. His visit was appreciated by all the children of the village, who followed him everywhere, especially once they found out he always traveled with little jars of bubbles. Hart's assistance was invaluable as the bank wire transmitting the funds for the loan issue was erroneously posted to the wrong account and he spent endless days backtracking through the electronic wiring system to locate the problem and resolve the issue. Once back at college, Hart wrote to us at WMI to reflect on his time in Buyobo,

"My time working for WMI in Uganda was one of the most valuable experiences of my life. It was a great opportunity to be able to do actual microfinance field work, which was made even better by allowing me to start my economic development career with an MFI who was just getting settled themselves. In Uganda, I met some incredible people and got to work in a culture vastly different from ours. There were a fair share of challenges, but we overcame them all and I ended up with a great number of lessons that I've since taken on to all of my other development work. Thanks to WMI for my first real experience in economic development work - I can't wait until I get to go back to Buyobo!"

January 2008 - Buyobo

Montana Stevenson, a sophomore at the University of Virginia, accompanied by WMI President, Robyn Nietert (her mom) and Board Member June Kyakobye, traveled to Buyobo in January 2008, as WMI's first intern. She assisted in the development of the microloan program format and in all aspects of the loan program launch. While in Buyobo, she was in charge of all document organization and worked in a team with a translator to interview prospective borrowers and help them write simple business plans. She vetted business ideas to raise chickens, market bugoyas (a native fruit) and open small shops, and then helped borrowers complete all of the loan program documentation. After the loans were issued, Montana assisted with the 2 days of training in marketing, business operations, and management concepts. Although many of the women had operated micro-businesses before, no one had ever explained the benefits of record keeping and she tutored borrowers one-on-one in book keeping basics. The actual logistics of the funds distribution for the first loans were very challenging - Montana organized the loan issue and accounting system.

As part of the team of the first WMI representatives to visit Buyobo, Montana acted as an ambassador for the loan program. She interviewed community leaders, spent time with the village children, met with bank officials and photographed and videotaped the program launch. After a week in the village, the ladies of Buyobo grew very fond of WMI's first intern and prayed for her return sometime in the future.