Carlos and Elena Fonseca first learned about Grameen Foundation through our key hands-on volunteering opportunity: Banking without Borders. Carlos first volunteered to help to design Grameen’s market entry strategy into Latin America. Since then he has continued to engage with us, serving our Program, Technology and Latin American Committees. Carlos was elected to the Grameen Foundation Board in 2005.
Carlos comments: “My initial experience working with Grameen profoundly enriched my understanding of the challenges a large part of the world population faces every day and what we can do to create progress opportunities for the poorest of the poor. This was very valuable knowledge for my every-day work leading the strategy and analytics areas of large global corporate organizations. But most importantly, this also became a transformative human experience for me and for my family as we saw the impact we could create with our volunteering work and our donations to the right cause and to the right organization to execute it.”
Elena comments: “Carlos and I came to the United States [from Colombia] to study for our masters degrees, thanks to student loans and academic scholarships. Our life experience has been that hard work combined with the right set of opportunities can make a profound difference in the life path of individuals and communities. Grameen is giving us an chance to make a modest contribution to that change process that creates empowerment and inclusion for people to get out of poverty. Our relationship with Grameen has also been key to educate our family in the importance of sharing and being connected to a reality beyond the comfort of our New York home.”