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An update from Maria España Ugaz Castillo in Peru:

This morning I visited Maria at her stall behind the chicken-sellers in the Micaela Market, an eclectic collection of stands along the main road which connects Pucallpa to faraway Lima. Maria sells cooked beans out of two extra large pots. Every once in a while she interrupted our conversation to call out “Frijoles!” (“Beans!”) to passers-by. Maria gets up around 3:00 am to begin cooking the beans over charcoal. By 7:00 am they are ready. Maria works every day from Monday to Saturday, taking Sunday off to attend church.

Maria just received a new loan of 1500 soles (about $500) from Manuela Ramos through her communal bank, “Mujeres Perseverantes” (Persevering Women). She plans to use part of this loan to start up another business selling cooked meats in the evening from her home. The money will go toward purchasing plates and cups to serve the food to customers as well as toward more beans for her current business. Maria decided to start this additional business to supplement her income because bean sales have not been very good lately. Although Maria’s two adult sons, who are policemen in other towns, have helped Maria to pay her loans, she does not want to count on their help indefinitely.

Maria told me that the fact that her bean sales are down is due in part to competition from other sellers in the market. She also must face a lot of fluctuation in the price of beans, which makes having a steady income more difficult.

Maria is a widow and lives with her 25-year-old daughter who works as a secretary at a local school. Maria went to work for the first time after her husband died three years ago. Around that time Maria began working with Manuela Ramos and used her first loan to start her bean-selling business. Maria told me that she enjoys selling. Without her loans from Manuela Ramos, Maria told me, she would not have the capital to work. She is proud to have never gotten behind in her loan payments.

In this short video clip Maria talks about her goal of moving forward with her business.

Gulinor Paigamova's cows in Tajikistan

An update from one of loans in Tajikistan:

Gulinor’s business has greatly grown and all this is out of the success brought forward by Kiva lenders who have indeed helped to see people have change successful lives.

Gulinor started by buying 4 cows, after getting the loan she increased the number of her cows and now she is able to buy and sell more cows every month. Gulinor is very thankful to Kiva and all Kiva lenders who supported her, as exactly your timely assistance allowed her developing her business.

The Laulam group in Afghanistan

An update from our of our loans to an Afghanistan entrepreneural team:

Laulam group could bring many new changes to their business after the loan they all could progress their business.

Laulam’s husband could buy more fruits and vegetables for his shop. Mustafa could purchase more paint for his work. Roshan Gul could buy more cloth for her business. Badam Gul could buy a new machine for her business.

We received this update from a Kiva Fellow who has been working in the Dominican Republic:

As you may know, all entrepreneur profiles on Kiva’s website are posted by local Field Partners like Esperanza, whose mission is to “free children and their families from poverty through initiatives that generate income, education, and health, restoring self-worth and dignity to those who have lost hope.” As a Kiva Fellow working with Esperanza International in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, I saw Esperanza’s mission at work most recently while visiting a batey.

For those that are not familiar with the term “batey,” it is a small, barrack-style community built and maintained by large sugar corporations. These communities are often completely surrounded by sugar cane fields, and often they lack basic resources such as clean drinking water, transportation, reliable electricity, and medicine. The majority of a batey’s members work in planting, cutting, and loading sugar cane for eight months of the year. The other four months are a stalemate, during which there are no sugar cane earnings.

In order to ensure continued earnings, one entrepreneur, Cloreta Yan, who lives on a rural batey, used her Kiva loan to open a small store in her house. Her community previously did not have a store where they might buy basic supplies, which meant that community members had to travel to nearby communities to shop. When my fellow Kiva Fellow Kalie Gold and I first visited Cloreta, she offered very basic supplies, such as sugar, oil, and rice. When I conducted a follow-up visit, she was selling over 20 items, including tobacco, ice, drinks, and cookies. She is now earning 600 pesos a week and, according to her loan officer, continues to expand the line of merchandise she sells.

Esperanza has supported 4,251 Kiva entrepreneurs thus far, resulting in approximately $200,000 loaned. Continually working to improve their organization, they have recently opened an office in Trau de Nord, Haiti. Esperanza continues to grow – thanks to Kiva lenders like you!

Staff members at various offices throughout the Dominican Republic visit their entrepreneurs frequently, and many of you will receive an update on an entrepreneur who received a loan contribution from you. Unfortunately, due to logistical and administrative constraints, reaching every entrepreneur for an update is just not possible, even with Esperanza’s dedicated team. Whether or not an update is provided on a specific entrepreneur to whom you made a loan, I hope that you have enjoyed this update on the impact that Esperanza has had with Kiva funds.