Volunteer sees hope in villages in Ethiopia

Published 6:41 pm Monday, November 19, 2007

The talent and expertise that made Jerry Freeland a successful businesswoman has been put to good use since she retired six years ago and moved to Edmonds.

Most recently, that expertise led her to what an old song describes as, “faraway places with strange sounding names.”

Addis Ababa, Dila, Yirga Chefe.

The call to those places came from a friend urging Freeland to join a team of business experts headed for Ethiopia to help with a microfinance project.

This project, the effort of a faith-based group from Spokane, provides small loans ($150 to $200) to women in two Ethiopian villages — Dila and Yirga Chefe — who grow coffee beans.

The loans must be repaid in nine months with interest. The women are asked to save a small amount to help finance the next growing season’s expenses. What they do earn helps them feed their families and, perhaps, buy pencils and paper so their children can go to school.

Even with all their hard work, there are rarely enough in savings for these women to start a new growing season without a loan of some sort, Freeland learned. The 6-year-old program serves 350 women, but another 1,500 are on the waiting list for loans.

The quest of the business team that left Seattle for Ethiopia in late October was to find ways for this microfinance program to serve more women and help those served make enough profit to no longer need a loan each year.

Like the others, Freeland paid her own way.

A volunteer in this region with the Senior Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), she often counsels and leads workshops for people starting a new business. So she’s accustomed to looking into the eyes of an eager entrepreneur seeking help.

In Ethiopia she looked out into a sea of those eyes held in the smiling faces of lean women seated on the ground, some holding babies. All were eager to learn how to increase the income from their small farming operations.

These hopeful entrepreneurs live in desperate poverty, lack even minimal education and most are caring for seven or eight children, hauling water, gathering wood for cooking fires, keeping house, preparing meals as well as working in the coffee bean fields.

Yet they came in droves for the chance to learn from this team. And, in return, the team listened and learned from them.

Growing and selling coffee beans can make them more self-sufficient, but to do that they need a lot of training and practical know-how, Freeland said.

“We have to understand their culture and not try to impose ours on them. They have a culture that supports a strong family unit and that needs to be preserved. But we can give them ideas on how they can take care of themselves.”

Everyone you meet wants to come to the United States, she said. “It’s kind of sad. You want to tell them we don’t have all the answers. They could find life in America very tough.”

Before going into the villages in southern Ethiopia, the team went to the country’s capital, Addis Ababa, to meet with leaders of government organizations promoting development.

The information gained in both places pointed to a grower’s co-op as a means for the women to lower their costs and increase income. Right now they each grow, wash, sort and dry their own beans, and then sell them for export before they’re roasted.

A co-op would mean they could use one common facility for most of the process and, perhaps, even add a roaster.

But that would also take a well thought-out business plan and additional financing.

Again, Freeland said, the challenge for the American team is to nurture and teach so that the Ethiopians can develop their own plan and see it through.

Not an easy task. Yet, one that will move forward, she said.

Her best memories are of the people she met: industrious, welcoming, friendly. “You don’t see a lot of sitting around. There are people everywhere. They’re walking, carrying water, leading their herds, gathering sticks, working in the fields.”

Like her camera, Freeland’s memory holds unforgettable images. “I couldn’t stop taking pictures of these beautiful faces and smiles.

“They are our brothers and sisters. We are one world.”

Despite the poverty, (“I saw much worse in India and Cambodia”) she is encouraged by Ethiopia and the potential of its people to be financially self-sufficient

“I told them I will go back, if I’m needed,” she said. “I certainly would like to go back one day and continue to help on this team.”

In the coming weeks Freeland will be sharing her Ethiopian experiences with others at her church, Edmonds United Methodist, and one of her favorite organizations, Friends of the Library.

Freeland also serves on the board of Creative Retirement Institute at Edmonds Community College. So you can expect to see her name and microfinance projects in Ethiopia linked on a future lecture and class schedule.

This is a woman for whom sharing what she knows best is a lifetime commitment. That is a good thing for Edmonds, the hometown she loves, and two villages in Ethiopia she will never forget.

Linda Bryant Smith writes about life as a senior citizen and the issues that concern, annoy and often irritate the heck out of her now that she lives in a world where nothing is ever truly fixed but her income. You can e-mail her at ljbryantsmith@yahoo.com.