Help people help themselves by joining our business and microfinance internship program. You can work alongside small entrepreneurs to grow their business, using the right financial education and adjusting their business plan as they progress. The microfinance program takes in interns that have prior experience in business, finance, economics, accounting, and related fields.
Alternatively, you can volunteer in the microfinance field on the non-business side if you have the correct knowledge in I.T.
Arrival to the program are most Sundays.
On arrival you are greeted by our friendly coordinators and taken to your accommodation. Next day you meet with all the volunteers and interns that came the previous days for orientation.
In orientation we cover topics like:
-Do’s and dont’s in the country
-How to get around and weekend travel
-Your projects
-Communication, SIM cards , and currency.
-Social meet ups with other participants.
Must have a business, finance, marketing, or related knowledge. Basic Spanish is required.
We encourage all of our participants in our programs to travel as much as they can during the weekends. Volunteers and interns usually travel together during the weekends. Our coordinators can assist you to make travels plans
During the weekdays volunteers and interns usually spend time together after their assignments.
Over the past few years, the term microfinance has become very popular in Guatemala and the field keeps growing as more entrepreneurs seek small loans.
Many small entrepreneurs in Guatemala are not able to receive loans from banks and are easy prey to informal lending sectors (loan sharks) who charge exorbitant amounts of interest on their loans.
Luckily, microfinance organizations started to appear to help these small entrepreneurs with micro-lending options with reasonable interest rates, training, and education to manage their loans.
In the microfinance project in Guatemala, entrepreneurs not only receive their loan but most importantly receive business guidance, financial education, and constant follow-ups to get the most out of their loan.
As an intern in the microfinance program, you will be working in a project that supports small entrepreneurs. Depending on your profile you will be assigned different tasks and will be working with an employee from the appropriate department.
There are various subfields in which you can help support, but the main tasks are mainly divided into:
Business plans: Interns can help lenders draft a solid business plan before they apply for the loan and also determine if their business is going to provide sufficient returns.
Marketing: Adequate marketing is part of the recipe for success for any business. Interns in microfinance can help clients make good use of the marketing tools they have available while developing a plan that matches their service or product.
Accounting: Keeping track of so many small loans is quite time consuming. Interns can help the microfinance project itself within their accounting department and help spot problems and opportunities.
Follow-ups: Conducting follow-ups is crucial to the success of the small lender’s business training. Interns can help do regular check-ups on their businesses as needed to make adjustments to their business strategy.
Basic financial literacy workshops: The microfinance project hosts a variety of workshops for their clients aimed at teaching them basic financial knowledge and available business tools. Interns can help draft and give these workshops. Subjects range in the areas of basic accounting, marketing, customer care, etc.
Besides working in the business aspect of the microfinance project in Guatemala, you can help with I.T; helping the project run more efficiently, connected and training its staff with new tools to get their work done in a better way. Being able to communicate in Spanish is essential to this internship if you do not know Spanish, we encourage to take at least 40 hours of classes with us before your internship.
INLEX works in Costa Rica with various projects that aim to give basic financial literacy to small entrepreneurs along with business strategy support, marketing education and other tools that will help small entrepreneurs.
Micro-lenders in Costa Rica typically receive a loan but do not receive training on how to use the loan, the same happens with small entrepreneurs who have the seed money but no business training. INLEX supports these small entrepreneurs and microlenders with training for their new businesses.
By joining the Microfinance internship program in Costa Rica you will be helping entrepreneurs with:
Interns are assigned to various tasks and workshops during their internship depending on their profile and expertise. Being able to communicate in Spanish is essential to this internship. If you do not know Spanish we encourage to take at least 40 hours of classes with us before your internship.
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