ISMU - Building Communities

Today, I went to visit one of IDEX's oldest partners, ISMU, based in Guatemala City. ISMU works with 22 communities from 7 regions/states, benefiting around 35,000 people. ISMU was founded in 1992 to strengthen community-based organizations in marginalized urban areas by building community organizational skills, encouraging active participation in the communities and stimulating leadership among community members. In this way, ISMU has allied itself with several community-based organizations that are now known as ISMU's member organizations. Now ISMU has grown its impact over 15 years later, focusing on 4 different areas: job training, education, community capacity-building and housing.

In the morning I met with ISMU staff and current Board Members. Each Board Member represents a different member organization and they, together with the staff, took turns in updating me on ISMU programs.

Last year, ISMU went through a strategic plan phase where they analyzed their strengths, weaknesses and their overall work in the communities. During this process, the Board Members would meet once a week (twice, if needed) to go over the programs together. Due to these regular meetings, the Board members became more united and were encouraged to become more involved in ISMU's work.

ISMU's Job Training program focuses on supporting small community business initiatives in different ways. One example is the training ISMU offers to community members, particularly women, to learn a simple skill that will help them make a product from home and can generate income. One of the Board Members is the trainer of the arts and crafts training program, where she just finished training 40 women on creating handmade cards. This training was hugely successful as women were able to start selling cards in time for Valentine's Day. Not only that, 10 of the women have replicated this training with other women in their communities.

Another way ISMU supports this program is through its microcredit program. ISMU has 55 people from 5 community groups actively participating in this program. ISMU provides a microcredit loan to each group member and supports the group by meeting with them once a month to offer training or to facilitate discussions on different themes such as self-esteem, conflict-resolution and adolescent issues, among others. Even though there is a peer-support approach for each group to repay the microcredit, each member is responsible for going to the bank to deposit their loan repayment. Thus, ISMU staff doesn’t collect the money, just the deposit slips. In this way, it builds responsibility and ownership among the group members.

In its Education program, ISMU is supporting almost 200 students from over 13 communities with scholarships. These scholarships cover tuition fees, school supplies, uniforms and transportation fees for those who live very far away from their nearest schools. ISMU shared with me that their scholarship program is different to the traditional scholarship, as they're not given based on good grades, but on the families' harsh living conditions of extreme poverty. So they don't want the program to be just about completing each child's studies, but to also integrate it with youth development activities to address challenges these students face in their daily lives once they leave school and go back home.

After the strategic planning phase, a new project emerged for ISMU's Community Capacity-Building program, which is to develop a group of monitors. The monitors will be community members representing one of ISMU's programs in one of the communities where they work. These monitors will be the link between ISMU and the communities. ISMU realized that one of its weaknesses was not being able to best identify the needs of the communities, and thus, the monitor will be trained and encouraged to detect these needs to then work together with ISMU to address this issue. Bringing this group of monitors together will facilitate a space and moment for all to exchange information, ideas and share suggestions to best address the challenges in their communities.

Last, but not least, ISMU is hoping with their Housing program to improve the living conditions of families living in extreme poverty. When ISMU goes into the communities, one of the issues they evaluate are housing conditions. ISMU met with Catalina Mendoza from the community of La Verbena who lives in a 3 by 3 meter square room, just enough space to fit a bed. How many people live in that room? You ask. Five people! When ISMU heard about this situation, they started working with community members on how to improve it, and are currently negotiating with Catalina's neighbors to allow them to extend her space onto their lands to give her a better living condition. This is just one of many examples of how ISMU is impacting in their housing program.

In addition to these programs, ISMU is always finding ways to collaborate with different organizations to better support the communities. A recent collaboration with OXFAM GB and ESFRA has ISMU focusing on responses to natural disasters. Disaster relief often overlooks a plan for rehabilitation. Once the disaster has struck and the victim is out of immediate danger, there is no process to rehabilitate and support that person to rebuild his or her life. ISMU is hoping to change that by providing the appropriate training to different community members who can lead this response in the event of a disaster.

ISMU's work isn't easy at all. On top of that, ISMU staff risk their lives by traveling to these communities, as the security in Guatemala has worsened in the past few years. But ISMU feels strongly about continuing its work in these areas because these communities need the most support. And in spite of all the dangers, one can sense that this has not stopped the community members from working hard to improve their lives and that of their children.

Katherine

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