By Colleen DeGuzman

Miguel Duhalt first saw the huge impact of a small loan when the doorman at his workplace borrowed money to buy three piglets.

Miguel, an impact investment officer at the time, was friends with the man and gave him $150 one day upon learning he was struggling to make ends meet. After purchasing and caring for the piglets for several months, the doorman sold them to a butcher and used the money to improve his quality of life.

With his earnings, he took on several improvement projects in his home, such as fixing the heater for his shower — for nearly eight years before, he had not been able to shower with hot water.

“It was so incredible how $150 helped him improve his life dramatically,” Miguel remembers.

Today, through his Mexico-based organization, Bamba, Miguel has been helping millions of other workers across the country make the same advancements in their lives with access to micro-loans for the last three years.

In addition to distributing micro-loans, Bamba works to close the gap between low-income workers and financial inclusion by providing financial and health security for domestic workers across the country. Bamba opens access to tools including resources for credit, savings, insurance, social security and healthcare insurance.

“We are the bridge connecting low-income workers to the financial system, the financial sector, because we believe that financial inclusion is a very powerful tool to help them improve their life,” he says.

A solution to a systemic problem

Nearly 2.5 million domestic workers in Mexico get paid in cash without benefits, leaving them without access to loans and formal savings services. This, Miguel says, keeps low-income workers from making major improvements in their lifestyles.

Miguel hopes that squaring away “some basic problems that can be fixed with financial tools, with affordable and relevant financial tools, people will be able to focus on long-term things like buying a house, or purchasing a car, or saving money for the education of their kids.”

Bamba is currently serving around 8,000 users from nearly 30 cities who earn an average of about $200 a month.

This summer, Bamba was selected as one of the 12 winners in the HSBC and Ashoka’s Future Skills Innovation Challenge, a global open innovation competition for changemaking organizations working to improve employability and financial inclusion in communities around the world.

In addition to finding, winners received access to a “systems change” course. The group of social innovators met each Tuesday for about two months, connecting across the globe to discuss call-to-actions to revive the economy post-pandemic.

Miguel says the most valuable skill he learned over the course of the program was to focus on systems change.

“I learned about how not to spend so much energy on cosmetic changes or superficial changes, but instead to identify variables that make profound and deep changes,” he says.

The way Bamba now practices systems change is by working with employers instead of reaching out to workers directly.

“Our vision is to create an ecosystem of financial institutions, non-financial institutions, NGOs, workers and lawyers because we believe financial inclusion is a job that all participants have to contribute to.”

Miguel also learned how to make his goals based on systems change. His mission: to build a world in which every domestic worker’s access to a bank account and health insurance is a given.

“My hope is that in 20 or 30 years, upcoming generations will have a hard time thinking that it was possible that there was a house in Mexico or in Latin America that did not have basic coverage in health and accidents and loans and savings,” Miguel says.

To put his goal into perspective, Miguel points out that women in Mexico have only had the right to vote for less than 70 years.

“Even though it hasn’t been that long, it’s hard for a woman here now to think of a world where they can’t vote,” he says. “That is what I want to do for low-income workers, make it hard for later generations to think of a society where access to financial and health coverage is normal.”

Growth and new goals

Though the growth Bamba has experienced in the past year has far surpassed his expectations, Miguel says he has greater goals for the organization: to be helping 10 million low-income workers around the globe.

The company recently underwent rebranding, letting go of its initial name Communidad4Uno. Miguel says the new name not only pays homage to the Mexican folk song “La Bamba” which he says is a source of pride for Latin Americans, but their logo symbolizes “the bridge we want to help low-income workers cross.”

While building Bamba from the ground up alongside less than a dozen staff has been challenging, especially during a global pandemic when healthcare has never been more important, the team’s eyes are focused on the future.

Miguel said there are two main parts to being a changemaker: being brave, and being grounded in a collective purpose.

The year he quit his full-time job to launch Bamba, Miguel became a first-time father to twins — a decision, that he says took a lot of courage to make. Though he emphasizes for changemakers to make reasonable risks, taking leaps of faith is almost always part of the process of making changes.

Having a team unified by one purpose is the strongest quality a group of changemakers can have, he adds.

“In order to reach the level we are at now, we had to know what our purpose is,” Miguel says. “Without a central purpose, you lose motivation and if you are true and honest with that purpose, it won’t matter whether you are running low on fuel or energy or even money — you are going to keep on going.”

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The Ashoka and HSBC Future Skills Challenge searched and selected social entrepreneurs shaping an economy where everyone can access opportunities and where people have the skills to thrive in a rapidly-changing world. Learn more here.