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Arkhiv
Potato i Jedinstvo
Sunday, August 14, 2005
BiH businesses in Twin Falls, ID
Nonprofit offers refugees business advice, loans
TWIN FALLS -- After a trip to visit relatives in her home country last year, Bosnian refugee Mira Delić isn't looking back.
"Life in America is a lot easier," she said, in an accent that reverberates with the soft sounds of her native Romance language. (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian may be Slavic, but apparently they are also the languages of romance!)
But there was nothing soft about the life that Delić escaped six years ago. The constant fear of ethnic cleansing -- in other words, murder -- in an ongoing civil war (sic) in the eastern European country prompted the Delić family to apply for refugee status in order to come to the United States, she said.
In Idaho since 1999, the wife and mother of two teenagers lives in Twin Falls and runs her own hair salon on Blue Lakes Boulevard North. Money she had saved as a dishwasher in a restaurant and as a hair cutter in someone else's salon enabled her to open her own business, exSALONce, last year.
Before she opened the doors, however, Delić -- who had already practiced hair care in Bosnia for 14 years -- got advice from a nonprofit entity that specializes in counseling refugees on business startups as well as providing loans to refugees who have just come to America. To qualify for either, foreigners must prove their lives are threatened if they continue living where they are.
The nonprofit is META, an acronym for MicroEnterprise Training & Assistance. Funded with federal dollars, META has operated in Idaho for 2 1/2 years.
META has helped about 75 refugees in the Treasure Valley area, with about 30 of those taking out loans, program coordinator Ron Berning said. The nonprofit just recently entered Magic Valley. It's a natural expansion because Idaho has three refugee centers, with two in Treasure Valley and one at Magic Valley's College of Southern Idaho. During the past five years about 500 refugees have settled in Magic Valley, Berning said.
So far about 20 refugees in Magic Valley have used instructions from META on how to structure and maintain a business in the United States, he said. But no Magic Valley refugees have taken loans. META has $50,000 available at any one time for loans up to $15,000.
The loan aspect of META exists because "banks aren't willing or able to lend to refugees," Berning said. "We fill that gap."
Berning wants refugees -- who are often professionals such as doctors, engineers and lawyers who are forced to turn to service-sector businesses to make a living in the United States -- to know they can rely on META soon after they arrive in the United States to help them start new lives.
The stipulation for getting a META loan is that the refugee can't be a U.S. citizen.
Delić said she didn't want a loan. For one thing, it's not part of the Bosnian culture to borrow money, she said. For another, she was afraid of paying a lot of money over the principal in interest payments.
However, she said she took Berning's advice on bumping up advertising and raising her prices a bit. She also said she'll turn to him if she needs help with taxes.
Not all Bosnians are afraid of borrowing money.
Euro Food Store
I loved this store! After the Bosnian cafe on Main Ave. closed, it was the last place in town where I could buy kajmak and ajvar, and a piece of Kras candy for the kid. There's a caffe-bar next door, and tables out on the sidewalk too.
owner Narcis Kurbegović, a veterinarian who came from Bosnia 10 years ago, said he saved money from a welding job and added that to a loan from a local bank to start his business. It would have been easier to get his European-style cafe and ethnic food store going if META had been available when he was ready to start, he said.
So how is business for these new Americans?
"It's OK, it could be better," the former animal doctor said.
Still, Kurbegović said just being in the United States makes him optimistic.
Delic, with only a year's experience upon which to judge her new business, said: "It's getting better and better every day."
TWIN FALLS -- After a trip to visit relatives in her home country last year, Bosnian refugee Mira Delić isn't looking back.
"Life in America is a lot easier," she said, in an accent that reverberates with the soft sounds of her native Romance language. (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian may be Slavic, but apparently they are also the languages of romance!)
But there was nothing soft about the life that Delić escaped six years ago. The constant fear of ethnic cleansing -- in other words, murder -- in an ongoing civil war (sic) in the eastern European country prompted the Delić family to apply for refugee status in order to come to the United States, she said.
In Idaho since 1999, the wife and mother of two teenagers lives in Twin Falls and runs her own hair salon on Blue Lakes Boulevard North. Money she had saved as a dishwasher in a restaurant and as a hair cutter in someone else's salon enabled her to open her own business, exSALONce, last year.
Before she opened the doors, however, Delić -- who had already practiced hair care in Bosnia for 14 years -- got advice from a nonprofit entity that specializes in counseling refugees on business startups as well as providing loans to refugees who have just come to America. To qualify for either, foreigners must prove their lives are threatened if they continue living where they are.
The nonprofit is META, an acronym for MicroEnterprise Training & Assistance. Funded with federal dollars, META has operated in Idaho for 2 1/2 years.
META has helped about 75 refugees in the Treasure Valley area, with about 30 of those taking out loans, program coordinator Ron Berning said. The nonprofit just recently entered Magic Valley. It's a natural expansion because Idaho has three refugee centers, with two in Treasure Valley and one at Magic Valley's College of Southern Idaho. During the past five years about 500 refugees have settled in Magic Valley, Berning said.
So far about 20 refugees in Magic Valley have used instructions from META on how to structure and maintain a business in the United States, he said. But no Magic Valley refugees have taken loans. META has $50,000 available at any one time for loans up to $15,000.
The loan aspect of META exists because "banks aren't willing or able to lend to refugees," Berning said. "We fill that gap."
Berning wants refugees -- who are often professionals such as doctors, engineers and lawyers who are forced to turn to service-sector businesses to make a living in the United States -- to know they can rely on META soon after they arrive in the United States to help them start new lives.
The stipulation for getting a META loan is that the refugee can't be a U.S. citizen.
Delić said she didn't want a loan. For one thing, it's not part of the Bosnian culture to borrow money, she said. For another, she was afraid of paying a lot of money over the principal in interest payments.
However, she said she took Berning's advice on bumping up advertising and raising her prices a bit. She also said she'll turn to him if she needs help with taxes.
Not all Bosnians are afraid of borrowing money.
Euro Food Store
I loved this store! After the Bosnian cafe on Main Ave. closed, it was the last place in town where I could buy kajmak and ajvar, and a piece of Kras candy for the kid. There's a caffe-bar next door, and tables out on the sidewalk too.
owner Narcis Kurbegović, a veterinarian who came from Bosnia 10 years ago, said he saved money from a welding job and added that to a loan from a local bank to start his business. It would have been easier to get his European-style cafe and ethnic food store going if META had been available when he was ready to start, he said.
So how is business for these new Americans?
"It's OK, it could be better," the former animal doctor said.
Still, Kurbegović said just being in the United States makes him optimistic.
Delic, with only a year's experience upon which to judge her new business, said: "It's getting better and better every day."
Posted by: Skelly / 12:13 PM 
Comments:
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I generally approve of the whole microcredit concept if it's done right which looks like what's happening here!
Looks like the Bosnian people here are benefitting from this.
The whole being against takeing loans is pretty strong in the culture, dealing in interest is still very frowned on among Muslims.
Technically it's forbiddent to Christians and Jews as well, but some how dealing in itnerest became socially acceptable in the West.
The other part is a very sensible instinct against debt. I wish more Americans in their personal lives were against debt! Our whole country would be better off!
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Looks like the Bosnian people here are benefitting from this.
The whole being against takeing loans is pretty strong in the culture, dealing in interest is still very frowned on among Muslims.
Technically it's forbiddent to Christians and Jews as well, but some how dealing in itnerest became socially acceptable in the West.
The other part is a very sensible instinct against debt. I wish more Americans in their personal lives were against debt! Our whole country would be better off!
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