MICROFINANCE FIELD IMMERSION

PROGRAM DATES
August 17th - August 27, 2010

PROGRAM DIRECTORS
Professor Todd A. Watkins
Economics, Martindale Center
taw4@lehigh.edu
610-758-4954

PROGRAM COSTS
$2470 (tentative) – This includes tuition for one credits, program fee includes room, board, ground transportation, wildlife safari, domestic flight to reserve in Zambia. Not included: international airfare to Africa.

ECO 195 (1 credit)

In August, Professors Todd A. Watkins (Economics, Martindale Center) and Sharon Kalafut (Computer Science and Business) will accompany a group of 7 students to study microfinance in Zambia over a 10-day period.  

Zambia has a vibrant emerging microfinance industry. Over the course of ten days, students will be able to gain exposure to a wide range of organizational structures and variations in lending methodologies. They will interact with an array of Zambian MFIs and regulatory institutions and
meet with staff and their (generally very poor) clients in urban areas as well as in small villages in rural bush regions. Students thereby will observe all aspects of the lending process, especially the solidarity group lending approach unique to microfinance; view first-hand the range of entrepreneurial microenterprises financed by microcredit, interact with microfinance clients and hear their personal stories of how microfinance is affecting their businesses, families and lives. The group will travel to Lusaka, Livingstone and rural bush regions of Zambia.

In the process, students should gain invaluable understandings of the challenges faced by the economically-active poor, and also learn about a range of issues facing the poor in developing nations, including health care and education. Students will see for themselves how microfinance, widely regarded as among the most promising approaches to the alleviation of poverty among the economically-active in the developing world, has changed the lives of the poor significantly through actively enabling entrepreneurship.

The trip should provide an invaluable opportunity for reflecting on the causes of poverty as well as possible solutions and foster better understanding of Zambian life, culture, and language.

The trip will also include tourism at world famous Victoria Falls, and a safari at one of Zambia’s largest wildlife reserves.

Lehigh University
Study Abroad Office
32 Sayre Drive, Coxe Hall
Bethlehem, PA  18015