Craig McIntosh Quoted in The Toronto Star
Microcredit: Small Loans, Big Trouble
12/03/2010
Jennifer Wells,
The Toronto Star
FERMATHE, HAITI
Rosita Meristil pulls her blue cardigan tightly about her lean frame. It is barely past five, the sun is not yet up, and the chill burrows into bones.
Rosita’s partner, Delius Elistin, is seated on the thin pallet-of-a-bed in the filthy, grim shed in which he and Rosita and their 2-year-old son, Lypse, reside.
Lypse, in his red sleeping cap and T-shirt imprinted with the words All-Star, is snuffling like hell. He plunks himself on Elistin’s lap. There are embers smoldering on the ground and a pot of soup upon the embers. Rosita has cut plantain and potatoes into the brew. This may sound pleasant. It isn’t. The smoke from the fire is noxious and captured thickly in this little fire trap.
It’s difficult to get one’s bearings in the predawn. The trees cast black silhouettes against the sky. On the trip up here to Fermathe women were clustered by the road — apparitions awaiting tap-taps to take them, and their merchandise, to market.
Click here to read the full article.
Related Links
Craig McIntosh is a development economist whose work focuses on program evaluation. His main research interest is the design of institutions which promote the provision of financial services to micro-entrepreneurs. He is currently working on research projects investigating how to boost savings among the poor, on whether schooling can be used as a tool to fight HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, and on mechanisms to improve the long-term viability of Fair Trade markets.
