Longo, Building Social Networks, page 19
Appendix B : Notes from Telephone Interview
March 5, 2009 8:00 – 9:30 a.m. CST
People participating on call:
Chingwell Mutombu, Remy (FSI program officer), Beatrice (FSI entrepreneur), Mama Musi (FSI
entrepreneur), Marc Hannum, Bernadette Longo
Beatrice’s responses (on left in photo)
1. Our lending circles bring people together to exchange ideas – ideas
about how we can fight poverty. People helping people in the DRC.
2. We meet once each week on Tuesdays to trouble shoot about our
problems as a group. We use cell phones once in a while, but we
mostly meet face to face. If we have lots of problems, we will
contact by phone. But it’s expensive to buy the minutes, so we
mostly talk face to face.
3. We use cell phones to contact our families and each other. We
mostly use when it’s an emergency, but not for routine things. We
watch how many minutes we use and usually take 5 minutes to talk when we get in touch by
phone.
4. I would really love if it was easier to communicate directly so we would not have to travel so
far. We could make arrangements ahead of time and stay in touch better. It would be
absolutely fine to be able to send text messages, connect to the internet, take photos and
videos. Our phones don’t have those capabilities.
5. We connect to people in rural areas mainly by traveling there, but we aren’t connected so
that we can communicate ahead. So we travel without knowing ahead and we pay a lot to
do this. We’re not well connected.
Mama Musi’s responses
1. The lending circle is a place where women come together and join hands to fight poverty.
2. We have f2f meetings once each week and stay in touch mostly that ways. We’d like to
communicate more with phones, but it’s a challenge to get the minutes because they are
expensive – about US$2.00 for 50 minutes. If I had the minutes, I’d like to keep in touch
every day.
3. Right now, it has to be a pressing issue for us to get in touch by phone. We use them when
we really need to.
4. If I had a telephone that would do more work, I would like to take video pictures to show
people what we’re doing here. I would like to share our work with microfinance with other
people and show them what their investment [in First Step Initiative] is doing here. I want
people to know how grateful we are and to thank the people who are helping us. I’d also like
to use video to connect to people in the rural areas.
5. Better communication would make it easier for us to connect with people in the rural areas
for commerce. It would also help us to stay in touch with people in our groups in the rural
areas, especially in case they might get ill and need health care. That way we could be sure
that they get transportation to health care when they need that.
Convention