The potential to empower disenfranchised communities in Latin America using Ethereum

The pursuing is an update from Ethereum Foundation Fellow Marcus AM.

Hola 👋, my sanction is Marcus and I'm a researcher and builder from Guatemala, and an EF Fellow. An optimist astatine heart, I’m driven by leveraging social, taste and technological innovation to physique amended societies - a condemnation I’ve held from a young age.

Guatemala: A Country of Challenging Opportunities

As a child, I would walk my weekends accompanying my begetter to sojourn galore of Guatemala’s astir desolate townships. At the time, helium ran a non-profit whose ngo was to present last-mile healthcare and found acquisition programs. The assemblage we astir often visited was the municipality of Puntarenas.

To scope Puntarenas, we utilized to question up to 3 hours by vessel done dense mangrove forests to get astatine a colony heavy successful the jungle. When we archetypal started visiting, the assemblage successful Puntarenas had constricted entree to cleanable water, nary healthcare oregon acquisition infrastructure, and minimal economical activity.

Established during the civilian war, the radical of Puntarenas sought refuge from the unit and massacres that took the lives of implicit 200,000 guiltless civilians passim the country. For the clip being, I’ll spare you the harsh world of the US involution successful Latin America (and beyond) during the Cold War, but if you’re funny successful learning much astir the subject, I would highly urge Schlesinger and Kinzer’s publication Bitter Fruit.

Over the years, we worked with the assemblage of Puntarenas to present aesculapian and dental campaigns, found a healthcare clinic, physique housing, and rise funds for infrastructure investments, including a schoolhouse tally by the community.

Fast guardant a mates of decades and Puntarenas is present a self-sufficient village, wherever the families person entree to education, healthcare, water, and vigor (delivered by star panels that adjacent powerfulness a fewer computers astatine the school)! What is happening successful Puntarenas is simply a reminder that entree to basal dignified services tin marque a immense interaction successful a community, adjacent successful the astir dire of situations.

The communicative of Puntarenas depicts the world of Guatemala - a beauteous country, afloat of culture, affluent heritage, and stunning landscapes. Upon archetypal impressions, Guatemala besides appears to beryllium a comparatively affluent country; successful fact, we person the highest GDP successful Central America and, astatine 1 point, the highest fig of helicopters per capita globally.

Unfortunately, the socio-economic cloth of Guatemala paints an wholly antithetic picture. We are a state that faces utmost inequality, onset by a convulsive 36-year agelong civilian warfare and a past of exploitation and corruption. Throughout Guatemala’s agrarian and chiefly indigenous regions, it is not uncommon to brushwood communities that, similar Puntarena once, person been chopped disconnected from basal services specified arsenic moving water, energy, shelter, healthcare, education, and food. Despite these challenging conditions, radical successful these regions strive towards creating amended livelihoods for themselves and those astir them.

Impact Starts astatine Home

One of the biggest challenges to improvement is the information that over 19.6 cardinal radical successful Guatemala unrecorded successful desolate surviving conditions. In the astir utmost cases, aggregate generations person to stock a azygous room, wherever open-fire stoves pollute the air, and wherever sanitation is an afterthought (if existent astatine all).

We judge that providing dignified lodging is astatine the basal of gathering amended futures for all. After all, our homes are wherever we walk astir of our time, wherever we learn, wherever our families travel together, and wherever dreams are born.

This is wherefore a radical of life-long friends and I are moving connected an inaugural called Lamina POP. Lamina POP is simply a patented operation exertion that utilizes commonly-found operation materials successful innovative ways to physique cheap, light-weight, and architecturally dependable homes. The exertion is elemental and tin beryllium deployed successful adjacent the astir distant areas of Guatemala.

Working with our partners, including Habitat for Humanity, the University of Cambridge, and Stanford, Lamina POP’s strategy is drastically improving the wellbeing of those for whom we physique homes. Collectively, we judge that a location is truthful overmuch much than 4 walls - it is the accidental to present a renewed consciousness of optimism and growth.

The outcomes of dignified lodging are palpable. From enhancing acquisition outcomes, reducing the biology interaction of housing, done to improving intelligence good being, we’ve seen the astonishing operator of improvement that the Lamina POP strategy tin provide. As we proceed to develop, we’re excited by the imaginable of delivering much innovation-led solutions passim Guatemala and beyond.

Despite our efforts, we person recovered that 1 of the cardinal barriers to wide adoption of innovative solutions similar Lamina POP’s is the deficiency of fiscal infrastructure and acquisition successful disenfranchised communities. Although Lamina POP’s solution is 30% cheaper than immoderate different starring low-cost lodging alternatives, the radical we purpose to physique lodging for are incapable to entree loans with low-interest rates to put successful a location for their families.

Many of the fiscal transactions that instrumentality spot passim these communities hap successful the ‘informal’ economy. Payments are made with cash, debts are not recorded, and goods and services beryllium good extracurricular the purview of fiscal institutions. Sending payments, accessing debased interest-rate loans, gathering a recognition history, and tracking commerce becomes astir intolerable with the existent fiscal infrastructure successful Guatemala. Operating successful the ‘informal’ system keeps the doorway closed for mundane radical to leverage idiosyncratic loans, concern investments, fto unsocial a mortgage.

As a consequence, galore of these individuals trust connected predatory lenders (among them accepted fiscal institutions), which often exploit susceptible populations for their ain benefit. It is not uncommon passim Latin America to find loan sharks who volition lend astatine a 20% monthly involvement rate. Crippling indebtedness leaves galore successful precarious situations forcing them to suffer spot deeds, to autumn into delinquency, oregon adjacent worse, to instrumentality their ain lives.

Can Crypto Help?

Among galore things, crypto's committedness is to make new, much equitable economical models that tin payment everyone, not conscionable the affluent and powerful. Some spot DeFi’s committedness arsenic being capable to supply fiscal services to those who whitethorn not person entree to accepted fiscal instruments successful emerging economies astir the world, including immoderate of the world’s astir disenfranchised communities.

If you're speechmaking this, chances are that you're optimistic astir the imaginable of exertion to code immoderate of these problems. Maybe that means decentralized networks that fundamentally revolutionize the mode we interact with ourselves, each other, and systems of power. Or possibly it simply means apps that usage caller and much close types of integer accusation to measure someone's creditworthiness truthful they tin get a decent involvement complaint connected a tiny loan. I deliberation the world volition beryllium determination in-between.

In its existent form, it is simply a agelong to accidental that DeFi is acceptable to supply viable caller pathways to fiscal inclusion astatine scale. We look immense barriers to integer and fiscal literacy, organization trust, and important challenges connected the idiosyncratic acquisition front. But successful spite of the authorities of wherever the manufacture presently stands, I judge that we person everything wrong scope successful bid to physique solutions that are tailored towards communities specified arsenic Puntarenas.

My Next Billion Fellowship

I person spent the past fewer months actively exploring ways to interruption down this obstruction of fiscal empowerment by leveraging the powerfulness of Ethereum. My extremity is to probe a fig of viable solutions powered by cryptographic technologies for fiscal inclusion and entree to recognition to yet alteration quality flourishing crossed Guatemala and beyond.

I person been researching which wealth legos mightiness beryllium utile successful a spot similar Puntarenas and passim the remainder of Guatemala. In particular, I person been exploring the barriers to adoption and imaginable solutions that could beryllium utilized to unlock peer-to-peer lending for those without entree to much equitable fiscal mechanisms.

To date, arsenic a portion of my probe I person spoken with members of hundreds of crypto projects including those starring DeFi protocols, DAOs, individuality and scaling solutions, and different halfway developers, designers, wallet builders. Additionally, I've held conversations and interviews with section starring projects, authorities offices, and planetary NGOs passim Guatemala and different emerging economies to recognize wherever they whitethorn spot crypto acting arsenic a catalyst for caller means of coordination and equitable fiscal services.

This probe has been incredibly insightful and has allowed maine to summation a amended knowing of the existent authorities of DeFi and the wider crypto ecosystem’s imaginable successful emerging economies.

Next Steps

Currently, I americium preparing an unfastened root study that volition supply a elaborate knowing of the existent crypto scenery and connection recommendations connected however to champion utilize crypto to unlock much fiscal inclusion, peculiarly for those successful emerging economies. I volition beryllium publishing the last study by the archetypal week of March (just successful clip for ETHDenver), truthful support your eyes retired for that!

In summation to the written report, I volition beryllium publishing an audio-visual bid that volition diagnostic a divers acceptable of stakeholders. This includes crypto-native thought-leaders and builders, those deploying solutions successful emerging economies that leverage crypto, and of people the last-mile communities and organizations that would yet payment from this technology.

The study and video bid I americium creating is chiefly aimed for builders successful crypto who would similar to champion recognize the scenery of the technical, education, and societal challenges and opportunities that should beryllium considered; arsenic good arsenic impact-led organizations passim emerging countries that question to recognize however crypto whitethorn specifically payment their efforts and initiatives.

To enactment up to day connected the latest findings from the probe via email and lend to the report, you tin subscribe and mint a escaped NFT connected Mirror. Let’s besides link connected Twitter!