MICROFINANCE EVENT: Women Advancing Microfinance Hosts Remittance Dialogue in New York

WAM-NY MICROFINANCE DISCUSSION SERIES: THE IMPACT OF REMITTANCE PRODUCTS

APRIL 24, 2008, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES

Women Advancing Microfinance-New York (WAM-NY) is hosting this dialogue about remittances and their impact on microfinance. A bibliography and recent research on the topic will be shared with participants. This workshop is in preparation for a larger conference on remittances that WAM-NY will be co-hosting this fall.

The event will be held Thursday, April 24 from 6:30pm to 8:30pm in the training room of the New York Life Insurance Company, Graybar Building, 420 Lexington Avenue – 15th Floor, New York. The event is free for WAM-NY members and USD 10 for non-members. Please RSVP to Amrote Abdella by email at amrote@thp.org.

Speakers will include:

Jennifer Ching, Director New York Office, Appleseed
Katleen Felix, Project Manager, Remittance Enhancement Program, Fonkoze and Co-Chair of WAM-NY

Jennifer Ching is the current Director of Appleseed’s New York office. Prior to joining Appleseed, she was an associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in its New York City office, where her pro bono representation included litigation and advocacy on behalf of Guantánamo detainees. Between 2002 and 2004, Jennifer was a Fellow in the John J. Gibbons Fellowship in Public Interest and Constitutional Law, where she litigated cases in areas such as the death penalty, immigrants’ rights and civil rights. As a Skadden Fellow, Jennifer founded the Immigrant Workers’ Rights Project as part of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey. She has taught at Rutgers School of Law and has served on the board of a number of community organizations in the metropolitan area. Jennifer received her law degree from New York University School of Law and her undergraduate degree from Harvard University.

Appleseed is working to bring Mexican and Latin American immigrants into the mainstream financial system of the US, by helping them avoid predatory and other high-cost financial services and by enabling them to save, access credit and build wealth. Approximately two-thirds if immigrants without bank accounts cash paychecks in check-cashing stores that generally charge high fees. Without a bank account, they are restricted in their ability to build assets and credit histories that would allow them to buy a home, start a business or pursue an education. Appleseed is addresses these issues with financial education materials for immigrants and partnerships with major financial institutions to establish a “Fair Exchange” brand, which provides up-front pricing disclosures on international remittance transfers.

Katleen Felix is a Project Manager of the Remittance Enhancement Project for Fonkoze. She is in charge of procurement of new technologies, relations with Haitian Diaspora, training and capacity building of Haitian Hometown Associations, developing financial literacy for new immigrants, project reporting, and donor relations. She is Co-Chair of the steering committee of WAM-NY and a member of the Financial Women’s Association Microfinance Committee. She has over ten years of experience in corporate financial management and 15 years in leadership and volunteer roles in nonprofit organizations and pro-bono financial consulting work. Katleen holds bachelors and masters degrees in Finance & International Business from HEC Montreal. In recent years she as been involved in various projects involving migrant’s populations including research groups on remittances.

Fonkoze, Haiti’s largest microfinance institution (MFI), has been offering remittance services for the past six years. Through innovative partnerships with money transfer companies in the US and the Dominican Republic, Fonkoze has increased its reach to both the Haitian Diaspora and more than 35 rural locations in Haiti. Recently Fonkoze has partnered with the Central National Bank of Enid (CNB) to create a low-cost stored-value card that offers affordable remittances to Haiti.

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