El Progeso

Last week I visited the Fundación Adelante office in El Progreso, which is a couple hours west down the highway, towards San Pedro Sula. El Progreso is a small city in the department (state) of Yoro, which lies next to Atlantida. The town has an attractive central park, and busy downtown streets that come alive with food vendors in the evenings. Less than 30 minutes from San Pedro Sula, many people commute to the big city to work.

Accompanied by credit officers, I visited some local Asambleas, and spoke with some of the women in attendance. At one Asamblea, I met a woman who used her Adelante loan to support the family shoe-making business. I’ve met other women who sell shoes, but this is the first time I’ve spoken with someone who is involved in actually making the shoes. Her husband is the shoe-maker, and when I asked her, and later him, where he learned his trade, they both looked at me blankly. It was a question with an obvious answer: he’s always been making shoes. He doesn’t remember learning; he helped out his father in his father’s shoe-making business.

They proudly showed me their work room: in one of the small front rooms of their home, two sewing machines were set up, and there were small piles of leather, tools, wooden models of feet, and leather sandals on tables, chairs and on the floor. Most of the family crowded around the sewing machines while I was talking to them; they had seven children, most of whom were just coming home from school. Their youngest, a boy not yet walking, was wearing a nice pair of sandals made by his father.

At another Asamblea, I spoke with a woman who was half-way through paying off her first loan with Adelante. She has been running a pulperia (small shop) in her home for about ten years, and has had loans with other organizations before. When a neighbour invited her to join their Asamblea three months ago, she joined and received a loan of 3000 lempiras (160 US$). She used her loan to buy more products for her inventory in her pulperia, buying more school supply and paper products to sell alongside the granos basicos (basic grains) that most pulperias sell.

This woman told me she likes Adelante much more than the other organizations she has had loans with, because she likes the way Adelante functions. She says the loans are much easier and more manageable to re-pay, and the help that Adelante offers goes beyond just the economic. She said the charlas at the Asamblea meetings motivate her to develop herself and her business, and provide useful business advice. Her four children - three girls and a boy between the ages of five and 13 - are all in school; paying these expenses - the required uniforms, shoes and supplies - can be very challenging. This woman hopes to provide education for all her children, so they can grow up to be professionals. Once she finishes paying off her current loan, she hopes to get another loan from Adelante, so she can continue to grow her business and support her family.