And the winner is… Awarding outstanding social performance

In spite of the little time left after the morning visits to FIE clients, I managed to dress up a bit to attend the award ceremony. My Bolivian colleagues were a bit nervous, wondering how many people would show up because of the difficult situation the country was going through – especially in the “Media Luna” region. To everybody’s surprise, there were even more attendees than expected. This high attendance showed me Oikocredit’s ability to summon people in the country. The event started with an institutional video of our local office. Because the event was during lunch, the brief speeches were interspersed with breaks. Many in the audience waited with some tension to hear the winners. With this award, Oikocredit wanted to show its recognition for the social impact of its project partners and their exceptional quality. Because of the particulars of the country, the award was given in two categories: microfinance and production. CRECER, the MFI with a strong focus on rural women living in remote places was the project partner awarded in the microfinance category. The award for a production project partners was given to El Ceibo, the organic, fair trade cocoa farmers' cooperative processing and marketing cacao. Both project partners received € 3,000 each for the financing of technical assistance projects. The award ceremony went very well. The time management of the event was perfect. Each member of the country office team did their best to make everybody – guests and staff from abroad – feel comfortable and supported. My compliments to all of them! At the end came a “sweet” surprise: an El Ceibo milk chocolate bar wrapped in Oikocredit’s blue paper. It is going to be hard not to eat it, and take it back to the office to share with my colleagues. I hope I will succeed...