Student foundation awards $50,000 grant to students

The IU Student Foundation awarded the fall 2013 Metz Grant to three student initiatives last month for their efforts in activism and philanthropy.

The Metz Grant is a $50,000 fund divided among philanthropic student organizations each fall and spring semester.

The groups, which include Trockman Microfinance Initiative, Wells Activism and Volunteer Effort and the Women’s Student Association, earned grants of up to $5,000 for their proposed work at home and abroad.

IUSF awarded funds to the Wells Activism and Volunteer Effort to promote healthy food options at the Boys and Girls Club and to the Women’s Student Association to produce a charity showing of the Vagina Monologues. Ninety percent of the proceeds from the performance will go to fund Bloomington’s Middle Way House women’s
shelter.

This semester’s grant to Trockman Microfinance Initiative will fund the group’s first project overseas. Trockman is partnering with the Kelley Institute for Social Impact and the COODEKA Microfinance Project based in Rwanda.

Using Metz Grant and KISI funds, Trockman students will travel to Rwanda to teach financial principles and provide small loans to parents and teachers in the area.

IU student Kaitlin Westlund has been involved with Trockman Microfinance Initiative since 2011.   

Westlund said before the Rwanda project, Trockman was focused mostly on increasing awareness about microfinance on campus and practicing it through the micro-lending web site kiva.org.

“This is the first time we’ve actually had the opportunity to go into a community and practice microfinance ourselves,” Westlund said. “We want to give someone a loan and train them to be financially literate, rather than just give them a handout, and it’s gone, and they’re back where they started.”

On-the-ground experience is vital for a program like this, she said.

“It’s one thing to sit behind the computer and give out loans, but it’s much more effective when you can go out into the community and get to know them and see what they need,” Westlund said.

Westlund said Trockman plans to extend the Rwanda program into the years ahead using the grant funds.

Trockman and KISI are also working at home to establish a microfinance center in Bloomington.

With projects in the works both locally and internationally, Westlund said Trockman hopes to enable people to raise themselves out of poverty one loan at a time.

Follow reporter Steven Johnson on Twitter @nevetsnosnhoj.