Fighting the Comfort Zone: How the Poverty Stoplight benefit is helping employees overcome obstacles
Written by Rodrigo Salazar, Credicentro. Edited by Tania Martínez, Poverty Stoplight Knowledge Manager.
We all have stories to tell.
Often, the most meaningful stories are about sacrifice and constant struggle. This is one such story — a story about the effort of Rodrigo Salazar and making the invisible visible.
Rodrigo comes from Argentina. He has been living in Paraguay for four years now. When he came, he started renting a place to live. He began working as a janitor for a daycare center until he managed to work at Credicentro. During that period, he moved four times. For Rodrigo, that meant paying for moving fees, making advanced rent payments, and putting down security deposits every single time.
Until last year, he did not think about this. He knew he had bills to pay and he worked to pay them. But then he had a breaking point. Around the same time, his company started the Poverty Stoplight project. He did not pay much attention to it when they announced it. He thought it would just be a waste of time, that it would interfere with his work. However, when the day arrived, he sat down to take the survey and by the time he finished, he realized that his main “red light” (or strongest poverty indicator) was that he spent too much money on his rent. Over the past four years in fact, he had spent PYG 17.000.000. With that money he could have bought his own property.
The Poverty Stoplight helped him realize he was wasting money. At that moment, the invisible became visible. As Rodrigo says: “The truth is that people tend to sabotage themselves. We know deep down what we spend and what we waste, and we close our eyes to this situation.”
In his case, the Poverty Stoplight helped him reorganize his priorities. He analyzed the possibilities and decided to build an apartment on his grandfather’s property. He knew that it was time to make important sacrifices. He had to sacrifice going out with his partner and friends, stop buying unnecessary things, and reduce his daily expenses.
After three months of saving, he had achieved the first fruits of his efforts: he had saved PYG 2.500.000. The next step was to request a loan. First, he received a loan from a bank and then, when he needed more, from Credicentro. His organization did not hesitate because they saw his sacrifice and they loaned him the money he needed to finish building his apartment. These were difficult months for him, but during this process, he was able to learn important things about himself on a deep level . He realized the importance of making good decisions, changing his habits and letting go of people who did not help him in his goal.
“One must make sacrifices, leave their comfort zone and open their eyes to be able to grow. Making an effort to follow your dreams is difficult at the beginning, but to continue making that effort is even more challenging. However, if we keep the conviction of what we want, that effort will be reflected in the future,” says Rodrigo. “Maybe it’s not right away, maybe it’s a long process, but the important thing is to never give up. This will not only reflect in material things, but also in yourself. It will give you important values for how to face the difficult times in your life.”
Rodrigo is one of the beneficiaries of the Poverty Stoplight program, and he encourages everyone to carry out a project or goal they wish to achieve despite the initial difficulties. Credicentro, in this sense, played an important role in Rodrigo’s struggle for getting a better life quality. By using the Poverty Stoplight program, Credicentro was able to identify Rodrigo’s needs and encouraged him to find solutions to this situation. Apart from ensuring Rodrigo’s life quality improvement, Credicentro also noticed a productivity improvement. Rodrigo reported that his new home brought him peace of mind and this reflected in his work.
“Do not lose the opportunity to grow, to achieve your dreams. When it seems like you cannot fight anymore and everything comes to an end, you must keep on fighting,” he says. “Today’s effort will be tomorrow’s triumph.”
