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Patty
Swift (center) spends time with her two daughters, Margot
(left) and Jacyln.
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Like a lot of us, Patti Swift stumbles
across the most unusual information on Internet searches. Years ago,
she was looking for a house bridge-loan, but in a simple twist of
fate, she found a way to improve the lives of families in Guatemala.
The search result further led her to educate herself about Central
America and developing-nation economics, to enjoy exotic trips and to
make lots of friends locally, nationally and internationally.
What popped up on her Internet search
for bridge loans was Friendship Bridge (FB) or Puente Amistad in
Spanish, an organization based in Evergreen, Colo. (www.friendshipbridge.org).
It makes loans, but of the micro variety. Many American children have
piggy banks containing the amount FB considers an average loan, $100.
Swift explains it like this. "We make loans to poor women to
start their own business. They can buy seeds for growing corn and
cabbage to sell on market day, materials for weaving and basket making
for tourists, or snack items to open a little roadside stand. When you
consider these Mayan women and their families subsist on less than $2
a day and many on less than a dollar a day it’s no wonder they can
never get ahead."
Enter the "Circle" of 16
Oconomowoc women which Swift established. Thousands of miles from the
Circle, Petronila Pur Tzaj, Blanca Rosalia Quiche and Micaela Tuj y
Tuj, who live in the tiny village of Santa Clara (reached by a bus
traversing 21 switchbacks), have been given a chance to help their
families survive. The "miembros del grupo" in Santa Clara
are named "Mujeres Angeles" or "Angel Women."
Swift and the Circle follow the
national FB organization’s model for making loans. Each of the
Mujeres Angels must have a "plan de trabajo" (business plan)
and four friends to serve as her collateral. A $100 loan is about
one-third of the average family’s annual income; imagine the impact!
If you see a group of happy volunteers
working the stands at the Bradley Center during a Bucks’ game,
chances are that’s Swift and her Circle pals making money for loans.
That’s not all they do. They churn out letters to friends and family
explaining that just $20 will educate one of the women’s "ninos;"
they hold Salsathons and sell their cookbook "Bridging the Gap of
Bounty." Each year they roll out a rummage sale raising funds to
help send a woman from the Circle to Guatemala. Daughter Jaclyn, who
was adopted from Guatemala, took a large jar to her school class and
at last count the nickels and dimes totaled $900.
According to Swift, it is this personal
connection with the Mujeres Angels that makes everyone work so hard
for them. Swift goes to Guatemala usually twice a year, (most recently
in June of 2005) and her two daughters, Jaclyn and Maggie, sometimes
accompany her. A veteran traveler, Swift says, "I thought Costa
Rica was the most beautiful place on earth till I went to
Guatemala." Her photo album is full of pictures of the lush
countryside, cloud-wreathed volcano peaks and deep blue lakes. But
what catches the eye against this backdrop are the people dressed in
their brightly-colored woven cloth, and often wearing the huipil
blouse whose color and design indicate what village the woman is from.
The distinctive Mayan features and abundant jet black hair create
beautiful portraits of people with the same longings as folks from
Wisconsin.
Swift describes herself as "a
mom," and maybe that’s why she has committed so much of her
life and resources to other moms. Oconomowoc has been home for years,
but Swift was born and raised in the Neenah/Menasha area attending
Carroll College in her late 20s. She took several courses,
coincidentally, in social work and women’s studies, then earned her
degree in political science and women’s studies. For several years
she worked in the financial services industry. How could she have
known she was preparing herself to "offer a hand up not a hand
out" to women living in a remote village?
Prior to FB, Swift worked on
international projects with Global Volunteers, taking along her now
adult son. From all of these experiences, Swift learned a primary
lesson: "Let the people we are trying to help tell us what they
need, not the other way around. Secondly, we have to learn to do the
projects their way with their tools." That explains why on one
building project she carried buckets of cement while muttering about
the advantages of wheelbarrows.
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