To all our partners
The Pandemic has left its trail of death and suffering in many families. Our partners and our allies have also suffered this hard blow. Some have asked their loved ones and even them for our word of comfort. Others, luckily, did not have to go through that enormous pain, but they have had to suffer losses from the economic side.
Social organizations are also suffering the onslaught of this crisis. Just as millions of small businesses have had to close or reduce activities and lay off employees, likewise our social sector organizations have seen their activities and resources diminished, not only because of the impossibility of doing work directly in the communities due to prohibitions. of mobility, but also by the movement of resources towards emergency care, which has prevented many of these organizations from being able to access their traditional sources of resources.
For FUNDEFIR it has also been very difficult, especially since the Pandemic caught us at the precise moment when we had to start testing our sustainability model. This implied the migration of the groups to the new technological platform and the use of the new version of the Bk-App, (our new mobile application for the management and monitoring of the BK groups). It also meant giving new impetus to the BK-Club, the subscription system for access to what we call “poverty buffers” promoted by our Community Advisors. But due to mobility restrictions, they were unable to continue their work of selling the Club.
It has been a very difficult year, because although we had plans for the money transactions between the groups to begin to be carried out in a virtual way, we could not complete the technology, nor achieve the agreements before the Pandemic.
Many of our groups have suffered the brunt of the crisis. Many were unable to meet and many of its members lost their jobs or were unable to go out and continue their small businesses. To them our solidarity and our commitment that we will continue to advance and although times are difficult, our will is also made of iron.
Despite everything, we managed to move forward and designed a money transaction model through different digital media, but it only worked for us with some of the few groups that were already using the Bk-App.
Now we must take up some of the pending tasks, change others that have not worked for us and create new ones in order to continue with our work. A difficult year without a doubt, but also with many lessons learned and that, thank God, leaves us with enormous challenges to overcome.
The invitation is that we continue with our backpack loaded with hopes, innovation, strength and desires to make the phrase “together we will do better” more than ever.