Villagers in Jordan building dreams with modest loans

Mennonite Central Committee
Saturday, 29 April 2000

MUKHEIBEH, Jordan -- Fatimah Mohammed Hussein used to be afraid that her crumbling mud home would fall down around her.

Now she looks at her sturdy concrete home with its modest furnishings, and with pride calls it her very own. "Now it's much better," says Hussein, through an interpreter. "I own the house. It's larger," adds the 51-year-old widow, who didn't own her previous, flimsy shelter.

Five years ago, Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Jordan loaned Hussein

$3,100 Cdn./$2,100 U.S. to build a two-room home. Over the next three years, with the help of her five children, she paid off that loan.

Indeed, she has managed to find enough money to add three more rooms to better house her family.

It's still a small shelter, surrounded by gravel, on a rocky hillside in Mukheibeh, a village in northern Jordan. But the warm, friendly woman is already planning more additions, and hoping to connect the house to running water.

"I have good hope for my future," she says, sitting comfortably on a mat in front of the house. "I have a good family. In sha'Allah (God willing), they will be wealthy later."

Hussein is the human face of the changing nature of MCC's work in Jordan.

MCC first began giving out grants and loans in Jordan some 10 years ago. Over the past few years program managers have reduced the number of communities receiving grants and loans in order to concentrate the impact.

Greg and Fay Foster, MCC country representatives, have chosen to build up five communities for a few years at a time before moving on to new communities. And they work primarily through revolving loan funds, instead of the mixture of loans and grants of old. Grants are still given in some cases.

"It's a hard thing because you build relationships and have to move out. But it's better development--better for Jordan, better for the communities," says Greg. "It's a big change in expectations for some communities who in the past only received grants. They've been getting grants for a long time and now we're talking about loans. You can imagine it takes a bit of time getting used to."

Right now, more than $146,000 Cdn./$100,000 U.S. is circulating in MCC's revolving loan program in Jordan. More than 100 loans--for agriculture, low income housing and businesses-- have been given out in the past year alone. And in the more than three years the Fosters have been in Jordan, they have only written off one small loan--because the recipient died.

The Fosters look to Hussein's village of Mukheibeh, with its committed village leaders, as its first success story. "They're now handling their loan program. They're collecting the loans and re-loaning them. They're doing as well with it as we were," says Fay. "In other areas I feel like we're moving in the right track, but it's slow going," she continues.

They speak with enthusiasm about moving into a new community, Adesiah, the first village to start an MCC-supported revolving loan program from scratch (without previously receiving grants). They hope to hand over full loan responsibility within five years.

They chose Adesiah, which is near Mukheibeh, with the help of Omar Jadallah, MCC's program coordinator. "Really, it's Omar with his ear to the ground," says Greg, adding that Omar felt it was a needy community that would handle a loan program well. The loan fund will start with $10,300 Cdn./$7,000 U.S. from MCC.

On a cool February morning, a group of men gather in a school office in Adesiah, eager to hear details of their new program. Greg and Omar explain the loan concept, emphasizing that a community committee of at least three people, including one woman, will operate the program. The committee will set the loan criteria, and decide who gets loans.

One community member says with all the poor families needing loans, the new committee's first challenge will be deciding who will be first--without causing rancour.

Shibley Abu Mohammad, head of the Benevolent Society in Mukheibeh, which runs the loan program there, also sits in the meeting. He will likely spend time with the Adesiah committee in coming weeks to share information on bookkeeping, loan procedures and more.

Later, after serving lunch in his spacious, two-story home just steps from Jordan's northern border on the edge of the Golan Heights, Shibley talks about his own concerns.

He says the needs of his own community are also great. While the fund is running smoothly, there isn't enough loan money to go around. And now that they're in control, he and other community members are the ones who have to say 'no.' He said it was easier when MCC had final control.

"Still I have a good feeling to continue," Shibley says through an interpreter.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org