Ti Kredi, Fonkoze‘s micro-finance program for the very poor, just received a sizable grant to expand in new areas across the country. That’s great news because, according to the agreement, we should be reaching about 3,800 new clients over the next year – clients too poor to fit into the plans of other microfinance institutions.
What’s tough is that because of the deadlines facing the organization that’s funding the expansion of Ti Kredi, we need to get three months work into one. For example, that means we have just this week to hire seven new credit agents and four temporary staff. Because I feel the on-the-ground component of any development project is always the most important – in this case that means the credit agents – you can imagine how such quick staffing could make me nervous.
Nevertheless, after just one day of interviewing, we found half of our candidates. And we have found some excellent, probably overqualified candidates, not just passable ones. But that’s what happens when the unemployment rate is over 60% and college graduates can’t find a job for the life of them. The only remaining question is if the brains all these candidates display will translate into good field work, or if in three months, we find out they’re more of office types. Only time will tell, but I’m hoping we’ll find a nice combination of both.
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Wooo expansion! How’s the training going?
Comment by demers June 10, 2009 @ 12:52 PM