Micro-Lending in Tijuana Helps Family as well as Recipients
The SixSeeds Partner Family: The Ty and Mary Miller Family
The Cause: Breaking the cycle of poverty by providing small loans to entrepreneurs in Tijuana who create a sustainable income stream
The Organization: a micro-lending effort administratively run through World Vision called Fundación Realidad Acción Civil
The Story:
When Lydia Miller (now age 12) heard her family was traveling thirty minutes from their lovely home in affluent San Diego to Tijuana, she cried.
“It’s dirty, and I don’t want to go there,” she said. Lydia had the same knee-jerk reaction most Americans would have. Unencumbered by adult niceties, however, she blurted out her true feelings. “It’s scary.”
World Vision described the area like this: “With a population approaching 1.5 million, Tijuana is a fast-growing, metropolitan area. On the hillsides at the edges of the city are thousands of people living in small communities, often without suitable shelter or decent incomes… Although some aspects of Tijuana’s economy are strong—such as tourism—many poor workers on the southern fringes of the city struggle to support their families by working low-paying, 12-hour shifts at factories.” This poverty meant Lydia’s fears had some merit. Tijuana had its most violent year ever in 2008 with 843 killings compared to 337 in 2007. Her parents, Ty and Mary Miller, understood their daughter’s concerns and explained exactly their reasoning for such a trip.
A commercial real estate partner by trade, Ty deals with science parks, biotechnology firms, retail spaces, and apartment buildings. Living so close to the border of Mexico, however, he could literally see the financial disparity between his lifestyle and the extreme poverty in Tijuana.
“I could stand on the terrace of the Class A office space in San Diego, and look across the hill and see Tijuana. Even though it’s only half an hour away, it’s really worlds apart,” Ty said. “Real poverty exists there – not the mild variety in America where we scale down and don’t go on a deluxe vacation. People go without eating, get sick, and don’t recover. That kind of poverty.”
The contrast was so great a group his friends in commercial real estate met together for lunch at Ty’s office and challenged each other to pool their resources to do something about it. Partnering with World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, they attempted to reduce poverty on the other side of the border by a process called micro-lending. The idea was to lend a relatively small amount of capital to poor entrepreneurs, who would pay back the loan from profit gained from creating their own businesses. The concept was compelling because, as Ty put it, “it’s a hand up instead of a handout. There’s a certain dignity that comes from doing the work yourself and realizing you’re working on changing your own life.”
Many don’t have the initial capital to begin a business, so they end up working at factories. Because they can’t afford child care, children are frequently left to fend for themselves. Micro-lending efforts make other money-making ventures possible, especially for women (who make up 76%) of the lenders. For example, a seamstress might get a loan in order to buy a sewing machine. This allows her to work from home, while also keeping an eye on the children. In fact, last year 909 people had taken micro-loans, which affected the lives of 1,846 children.
“It’s hard to think properly about these issues. You could buy a fancy car, or a really nice one that’s $10,000 less and use that money to impact an incredible number of people over your lifetime. You might not have a chrome dipstick, but your could reinvest that money over and over and change people’s lives.”
John Kingston, Ty Miller, and Frank Vizcarra all belong to a group who meets annually and encourages each other to pursue other ventures as well as their professions. “Micro-lending in Tijuana is something I started doing with my friends until we realized we could integrate the family within it. That’s when the Kingston family came to me and said, ‘We’re working with World Vision on a family Tijuana project.
We didn’t even know about each other’s work.” The Kingstons’ efforts involve a 15 year plan to get communities out of poverty by teaching about hygiene, clean water, building latrines and schools. Micro-lending comes in later in the continuum of community development, after there is an infrastructure. With the Kingston family’s efforts, the Vizcarra family’s scholarships, and our micro-lending, we ended up coming alongside each other as tributaries flowing into a larger river.”
Ty and Mary got their entire family involved. They have a 20 year old daughter Miley who’s at USC, 18 year old Kristin who will be a volleyball player at University of San Diego next year; 14 year old Joshua who’s plays lacrosse, surfs, and jr. life guard; 12 year old Lydia who also plays volleyball; and 9 year old Tyler who does a little bit of everything. “You have to, if you’re the youngest of five,” says Ty.
The Millers, with some of the kids in tow (depending on age appropriateness), go to Tijuana to see the progress of their micro-lending efforts a couple of times a year. They get to ask questions like, “What was your life like before the loan, during the process, and how is it better or worse?” They Millers wanted to expose their kids to this so they could be global citizens who both “know how to follow Jesus and have a broad understand of the kingdom work and a of socioeconomic environments.” Plus, they get to see the results with their own eyes, and the results really speak for themselves. They get to meet people who have succeeded with the help of the loan. Antonia Sanchez, for example, is a mother of four who used to stay home every day sewing and embroidering. The $120 a week her husband made just wasn’t enough to feed her family of six and keep the kids in school. When this microeconomic development program came to her neighborhood, she reluctantly joined. Today, with the business she grew with the loans, she is able to help her husband and her family financially. Hearing stories like Antonia’s was cathartic and educational for all involved.
“These are performing loans,” Ty says, “We have a 99% payback ratio. That first group raised $60,000 and now it’s up to $360,000, which helps more than a thousand people.”
Additionally, the Millers decided to go with the Kingstons when they went to the squatter community to help build a school. This brings us back to what made Lydia cry. Since the Millers know how to navigate the area and stay as safe as possible, they went in spite of the increased violence. “We’re learning how to do philanthropy and raise our kids intelligently at the same time. We weren’t taking silly risks with our children,” he explained.
When the family arrived in Tijuana, they started working quickly amidst all the need. Pretty soon, young Lydia was immersed in her work. At the end of the day, they went to an ice cream store in the suburbs, got some cones, and sat on curb to eat them. As trucks rolled by, Ty asked, “You were so afraid of coming down here. Are you still?”
“Her eyes were wide open, and everything was different. She realized there were lovely people there. It was a learning experience in a philanthropically holistic way, not from an antiseptic distance but in a living and breathing way,” he said. “It makes a difference in kids lives when they experience service rather than just hearing about it.”
“It’s dirty, and I don’t want to go there,” she said. Lydia had the same knee-jerk reaction most Americans would have. Unencumbered by adult niceties, however, she blurted out her true feelings. “It’s scary.”
World Vision described the area like this: “With a population approaching 1.5 million, Tijuana is a fast-growing, metropolitan area. On the hillsides at the edges of the city are thousands of people living in small communities, often without suitable shelter or decent incomes… Although some aspects of Tijuana’s economy are strong—such as tourism—many poor workers on the southern fringes of the city struggle to support their families by working low-paying, 12-hour shifts at factories.” This poverty meant Lydia’s fears had some merit. Tijuana had its most violent year ever in 2008 with 843 killings compared to 337 in 2007. Her parents, Ty and Mary Miller, understood their daughter’s concerns and explained exactly their reasoning for such a trip.
A commercial real estate partner by trade, Ty deals with science parks, biotechnology firms, retail spaces, and apartment buildings. Living so close to the border of Mexico, however, he could literally see the financial disparity between his lifestyle and the extreme poverty in Tijuana.
“I could stand on the terrace of the Class A office space in San Diego, and look across the hill and see Tijuana. Even though it’s only half an hour away, it’s really worlds apart,” Ty said. “Real poverty exists there – not the mild variety in America where we scale down and don’t go on a deluxe vacation. People go without eating, get sick, and don’t recover. That kind of poverty.”
The contrast was so great a group his friends in commercial real estate met together for lunch at Ty’s office and challenged each other to pool their resources to do something about it. Partnering with World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, they attempted to reduce poverty on the other side of the border by a process called micro-lending. The idea was to lend a relatively small amount of capital to poor entrepreneurs, who would pay back the loan from profit gained from creating their own businesses. The concept was compelling because, as Ty put it, “it’s a hand up instead of a handout. There’s a certain dignity that comes from doing the work yourself and realizing you’re working on changing your own life.”
Many don’t have the initial capital to begin a business, so they end up working at factories. Because they can’t afford child care, children are frequently left to fend for themselves. Micro-lending efforts make other money-making ventures possible, especially for women (who make up 76%) of the lenders. For example, a seamstress might get a loan in order to buy a sewing machine. This allows her to work from home, while also keeping an eye on the children. In fact, last year 909 people had taken micro-loans, which affected the lives of 1,846 children.
“It’s hard to think properly about these issues. You could buy a fancy car, or a really nice one that’s $10,000 less and use that money to impact an incredible number of people over your lifetime. You might not have a chrome dipstick, but your could reinvest that money over and over and change people’s lives.”
John Kingston, Ty Miller, and Frank Vizcarra all belong to a group who meets annually and encourages each other to pursue other ventures as well as their professions. “Micro-lending in Tijuana is something I started doing with my friends until we realized we could integrate the family within it. That’s when the Kingston family came to me and said, ‘We’re working with World Vision on a family Tijuana project.
We didn’t even know about each other’s work.” The Kingstons’ efforts involve a 15 year plan to get communities out of poverty by teaching about hygiene, clean water, building latrines and schools. Micro-lending comes in later in the continuum of community development, after there is an infrastructure. With the Kingston family’s efforts, the Vizcarra family’s scholarships, and our micro-lending, we ended up coming alongside each other as tributaries flowing into a larger river.”
Ty and Mary got their entire family involved. They have a 20 year old daughter Miley who’s at USC, 18 year old Kristin who will be a volleyball player at University of San Diego next year; 14 year old Joshua who’s plays lacrosse, surfs, and jr. life guard; 12 year old Lydia who also plays volleyball; and 9 year old Tyler who does a little bit of everything. “You have to, if you’re the youngest of five,” says Ty.The Millers, with some of the kids in tow (depending on age appropriateness), go to Tijuana to see the progress of their micro-lending efforts a couple of times a year. They get to ask questions like, “What was your life like before the loan, during the process, and how is it better or worse?” They Millers wanted to expose their kids to this so they could be global citizens who both “know how to follow Jesus and have a broad understand of the kingdom work and a of socioeconomic environments.” Plus, they get to see the results with their own eyes, and the results really speak for themselves. They get to meet people who have succeeded with the help of the loan. Antonia Sanchez, for example, is a mother of four who used to stay home every day sewing and embroidering. The $120 a week her husband made just wasn’t enough to feed her family of six and keep the kids in school. When this microeconomic development program came to her neighborhood, she reluctantly joined. Today, with the business she grew with the loans, she is able to help her husband and her family financially. Hearing stories like Antonia’s was cathartic and educational for all involved.
“These are performing loans,” Ty says, “We have a 99% payback ratio. That first group raised $60,000 and now it’s up to $360,000, which helps more than a thousand people.”
Additionally, the Millers decided to go with the Kingstons when they went to the squatter community to help build a school. This brings us back to what made Lydia cry. Since the Millers know how to navigate the area and stay as safe as possible, they went in spite of the increased violence. “We’re learning how to do philanthropy and raise our kids intelligently at the same time. We weren’t taking silly risks with our children,” he explained.
When the family arrived in Tijuana, they started working quickly amidst all the need. Pretty soon, young Lydia was immersed in her work. At the end of the day, they went to an ice cream store in the suburbs, got some cones, and sat on curb to eat them. As trucks rolled by, Ty asked, “You were so afraid of coming down here. Are you still?”
“Her eyes were wide open, and everything was different. She realized there were lovely people there. It was a learning experience in a philanthropically holistic way, not from an antiseptic distance but in a living and breathing way,” he said. “It makes a difference in kids lives when they experience service rather than just hearing about it.”
How you can help:
The Millers would love to have you participate in their work. If people would like to donate, please specify the project when you contact World Vision at 800-777-5777.
Idea for your own family:
Not everyone can drive their car across the border, but everyone can help in micro-lending. The beauty is that a little money can go a long way. Please visit www.Kiva.org to see how far your money can go. Or, visit One Hen for fun activities to introduce your children to the micro-financing concept.
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