Job description for the first few weeks

I think it would be beneficial for me to describe what it is we're doing. This applies till...tomorrow...while we're working for PRISMA. PRISMA is a Peruvian-based non-governmental organization that is a partner with Freedom from Hunger, who I'm doing my internship with along with my 3 partners: Cam Nelson, Carly Chambers, and Chelsea Brothers. PRISMA offers microcredit loans to people living in poverty so that they can use the money to start or improve their small businesses or use it for agricultural purposes. Or anything, really, but those are the main reasons. So we're out in the Junín province of Peru gathering information from these people, who are mainly women, but there are also a few men. We were asked to assess 5 cities.

What we have been doing in each city is this: we have a list of 19 women (and a few men), as well as 19 more as backups, and we are supposed to give each of them a 10 minute survey about how food-secure they are. We ask questions about if they worry about running out of food or if they've run out of food, or if they have times when they have to eat the same thing over and over or if they lose weight. Then we ask a few questions and have them describe their opinions on not having enough food and what they view in their communities about hunger and food. With four of the women, we are supposed to follow the survey with an interview that takes 20-45 minutes and is a more in-depth look at their lives. We ask them a lot of questions about things now and how things were for their mothers and what they think they'll be like for their children. We also discuss their experience as a member of PRISMA. Each of the women has already taken out a microcredit loan from PRISMA. (Honestly, there are also some men. But most of them are women.) Additionally, each woman belongs to a group, because they have to take the loan out as a group and pay it back as a group. And in each area, we need to get with two groups and do a 30-45 minute discussion with them about their community. One of the discussions talks about the different months of the year and the fluctuations of income, migration, food shortage, and illness. The other has the group members divide a pile of beans (or whatever we have) into groups representing the classes of people in their community, and then we talk about the kinds of lives the people in those groups lead.

After we visit each of the cities, we're going to review all of the information, write reports on it, and give it all to PRISMA. Our hope is that it will help improve the services currently offered and know where the needs are greatest and how to meet those needs more effectively.