It’s one thing to donate to charity, but members of the parish at the Queenship of Mary Roman Catholic Church are moving ahead with a partnership with a parish in Guatemala that proves to be beneficial to both sides — financially and spiritually.
Two Plainsboro women — Ann Jackman and Connie Persico — are at the forefront of the initiative. Both traveled this month as part of a team of parish delegates to Guatemala, where they met with their “sister” parish of Santa Cruz to check on the progress of their newly developed microfinance program, the Amistad y Fe (Friendship and Faith) Fund. The fund was established for the impoverished rural village of La Morena.
The microfinance program is just one aspect of the partnership formed between the two parishes. The first round of the program consisted of collecting share certificates of $50 each from members of the Queenship of Mary parish — for a total of $23,000 — that were used to provide loans to members of the La Morena community to help them establish their local businesses. La Morena is a farming community of 230 families, who have faced issues relating to health care availability, inadequate and interrupted access to education, limited employment opportunities, and other challenges.
According to information from the parish, microfinance is a popular strategy used throughout the world to empower individuals who have no access to traditional financial services. Microfinance programs offer loans based on non-traditional forms of security, as community groups are presented as collateral. In time, successful borrowers can obtain larger loans and longer terms.
Community members in La Morena applied for the loans, the first round of which were just awarded. There were 18 loans that went to agricultural businesses, while two were nonagricultural. At the end of the growing season, the farmers will harvest their produce, sell it, and then use the money to repay the loans, most of which will be paid back in a year. The other two went to local businesswomen and may take a little longer to repay.
This month, six residents from the Plainsboro parish, including Persico and Jackman, traveled to Guatemala to check the status of the new initiative. It is the fourth delegation that will head to Guatemala since the partnership was formed. It was the first trip for Jackman and the second for Persico.
The initiative has been a couple of years in the making, said Jackman, who has been involved from the beginning. The Catholic Church Solidarity Team of the Diocese of Metuchen initially introduced the Queenship of Mary parish to the people of Santa Cruz, Guatemala. The parish-to-parish alliance was formed to provide opportunities for project support, education, exchange visits, faith sharing, and advocacy with the ultimate goal of global solidarity.
“It seemed very appropriate,” said Jackman of the parish-to-parish initiative. “Everything that happens over on the other side of the world does affect us here. It would be a chance to make a difference and get to know people in other parts of the world. Back then, we didn’t know what we would do, how it would evolve.”
Persico said that when the partnership was first formed, it became clear to the Queenship of Mary parish that the Santa Cruz parish community was very similar to their own parish in Plainsboro. “We felt that we could establish this relationship and really invest in the community and in our belief in global solidarity,” said Persico.
Jackman served on one of the committees that was set up to organize the “ongoing quest” to see what the partnership could bring. After the first three trips, the idea for the microfinance program came into place, she said.
“It’s particularly exciting to me because I’ve been working on it for two-and-a-half years, and this is my first opportunity to go down there.”
For Jackman, having an opportunity to reach out to a completely different part of the world is inspiring, even though she does have prior experience in heading to a new part of the world. Jackman grew up in England. Her father worked for a company that specialized in shop-fitting, working his way up from carpenter to management of the company. Her mother was a homemaker. Jackman moved to the United States in 1984 because of her husband’s job. They lived in East Windsor until 1989, when they moved to Plainsboro while expecting their third child. Jackman has been a member of the parish ever since and has been involved in volunteer work since arriving in the United States.
“It’s amazing that we can reach out to a completely different part of the world like this,” she said.
Jackman said that there are minimal health care and educational opportunities in the community of La Morena, and the goal of the microfinance program is to help the local people in that community become more self-sufficient. New loans will be administered using the money that is repaid, and Jackman said the goal is to expand the program as it progresses.
The hope is to not only allow the agricultural initiatives to provide the community with products to sell, but to help promote better diets.
“There will eventually be things like interest and savings components,” she said. “We haven’t been able to factor all that in yet.”
As part of the program, Persico said that participants attend sessions on different topics, run by a program administrator in the Santa Cruz parish, before going through the loan application process.
Persico was on the first and second delegations and is fluent in Spanish. This comes in handy and allows her to interpret and help with communication to see what aspects of the program can be improved.
The most recent trip, the fourth delegation that took place between November 13 and 17, allowed the delegation to see how the microfinance program is working and allow the La Morena community to share ideas with them.
“We get as much or more with this partnership,” said Persico. “It’s very gratifying to know that this will give people the opportunity by virtue of investment to contribute to their families and their community.”
Persico has witnessed first-hand what can happen when underprivileged communities are given a chance to succeed. A resident of Plainsboro for the last 13 years, Persico’s mother was a housekeeper, and her father was a waiter. Having three grown sons affords her the opportunity to get involved in the program.
Persico has worked as a registered nurse in the Emergency Department in Newark for the last 22 years. Persico says she grew up in an area that is very similar to the one where she now works in Newark.
“When people are given the opportunity and treated with dignity, they can do great things in spite of the obstacles they may have in their way,” she said. “As long as they have faith in themselves, and others have faith, they can have the opportunity to create what they want their lives to be. The value of investing in a community and putting your faith in people can pretty much surmount any obstacle.”
Persico says she sees this in the people of La Morena, who have great faith in their community. “They have a solid sense that the most important thing is to educate and provide for their children and care for each other.”
For the people in the Queenship of Mary parish delegation, it allows them to put into practice what they believe, she said.
“It was not small thing that over $20,000 was raised in a matter of a few weeks because of the belief that our community shares that this is something valid and this is something we can all benefit from,” said Persico. “We can’t be separated by borders. We have to reach out and meet our brothers and sisters.”
