Microfinance Along Honduras’ Northern Coast

Adelante’s blog has moved! We have brought our blog over to our website to keep all of our content in the same place. We will continue to post short summaries here with link a link to both our English AND Spanish versions so that you can continue to follow our blog from wordpress.

This most recent post is written by a new intern with us, Roos Saalbrink. Here, she writes about her impressions from the field since starting with us earlier this month. Her travels include three different zones of our La Ceiba Branch Office, from the rural outskirts of San Juan Pueblo to the west, to communities past Jutiapa in the east, as well as the Olanchito zone from our Tocoa Branch Office. To read her blog post in English, follow this link: http://adelantefoundation.org/en/read-our-blog/42-from-the-field/173-microfinance-along-honduras-northern-coast

Adelante ha pasado el blog a nuestro sitio web para mantener todo nuestro contenido ahí, y también para poder tener una versión en español. Aquí seguiremos con resúmenes breves con el enlace a nuestro nuevo blog para continuar compartiendo el blog de wordpress. Nuestro nuevo artículo es escrito por una nueva voluntaria, Roos Saalbrink. Ella escribe de sus observaciones en el campo desde empezar con nosotros al principio del mes. Ella ha viajado a tres de nuestras zonas de la Agencia de La Ceiba, en las afueras de San Juan Pueblo por el oeste hasta las comunidades rurales afuera de Jutiapa en el este. También ha visitado la zona de Olanchito servido por nuestra Agencia de Tocoa. Para leerlo en español, haz clic en el siguiente enlace: http://adelantefoundation.org/es/lea-nuesto-blog/42-from-the-field/173-microfinance-along-honduras-northern-coast

A Tragic Fire in Roatán

The closest I got to the beach that weekend was on the back of the motorcycle traveling between clients’ homes.

Roatán receives thousands of tourists each year but the island’s largest peak season is now, with Semana Santa (Holy Week) having just passed. From Spring Breakers to retirees, foreign tourists flock to this island off the coast of La Ceiba in larger numbers to enjoy the beautiful beaches that the island has to offer. However, my trip two weeks ago as the peak season got underway served a different purpose.

While most tourists are not able to venture off the beaten path, neighborhoods such as these are where you will find Adelante clients.

The Roatán zone from our La Ceiba Branch Office currently serves over 300 clients, many of whom invest in businesses to serve the tourism industry, while many more run businesses serving the local communities. Despite the luxurious resorts offered to incoming guests, many locals continue to suffer in poverty. One such woman is Adeline.

Adeline is a proud and bold woman who raised eight children on her own and has had two grandsons, 12 and 13 years old, in her care since they were very young. The difficult economic situations she has faced prevented her from being able to learn to read and write and laments that there simply was not enough money to send her children to secondary school.

Adeline is a native of Roatán–a Caribbean island known for beautiful beaches and expensive resorts. The poverty that her and many other natives of the island suffer from is often left unseen.

As a native to the island, Adeline is a native English speaker but also speaks Spanish. With greater migration into the island from mainland Honduras, Spanish is becoming more widely spoken there and many natives feel an amount of resentment toward this phenomenon. Because of this, Adeline and the other members of the group were thrilled to get a chance to have me there to chat in English.

I met Adeline while the Roatán Zone Credit Officer was working hard to get credit evaluations and other work done before the Semana Santa work holidays. These evaluations take place prior to each loan cycle to review the needs of each individual and their current economic situation.

While helping Orville with his credit evaluations, I arrived to the following standard question with Adeline, “Do you own your own home?” The answer I received was not what I had expected: “Well I did but three weeks ago it burned down.” Luckily no one had been at home when the fire started but she still has not been able to figure out the source of the fire. Where she lived, she did not have electricity, ruling out an electrical fire and did not have gas for her stove.

A dish rack and scraps of wood and metal sheeting was all that was left of her home when we returned to the scene three weeks later.

Until she is able to rebuild, Adeline has moved into the home of one of her six sons, about 15-20 minutes away along the unpaved road. She will continue working hard each day at her butcher shop in the market so that she can once again offer a home to her two grandsons, abandoned by their father.

Although pleased to have their grandmother around, Adeline’s grandchildren share in the pain she has suffered from in this recent tragedy.

Despite the various challenges faced by Adeline she continues to grow her business. With each loan cycle, she continues to take on larger amounts and pays back diligently, proving the success she has had within Adelante’s microlending model. Although she has a long way to go to make progress toward a new home, her loan history makes her eligible for our individual loan products. Once she begins rebuilding, Orville hopes to offer her with the support she needs to finish up the construction via a Home Improvement Loan.

Orville looks on with sadness at all that is left of what was once Adeline’s home.

I was personally amazed by how immediately Orville had responded to her tragedy in order to offer her hope for the future. Bringing our clients’ needs to the forefront and addressing how we can solve them is what we see as vital to successfully operating as a microfinance institution while fulfilling our social mission, and this is exactly what April being the Month of Microfinance is all about.

Her fellow Adelante borrowers also brought forth moral support, immediately displaying concern for what had happened. Adeline is very head strong and independent, which had originally made her reluctant to discuss the fire with her friends. However, the support from each of the women and from Adelante staff like Orville gave her enough confidence to open up and reminded her of just what it means to be part of a solidarity group.

Innovative Solutions out of Poverty

Our Board members and a few staff with Carmen outside her home which she has been able to invest in with a Home Improvement Loan

Last month, Adelante’s Board got a chance to visit a few clients of ours outside of La Ceiba. Not only did they get a glimpse into the lives of our clients, they also got a chance to make a few purchases for themselves! The trip started with a visit to Carmen’s home, where she produces delicious sweet breads and pastries that her husband later carries out to the market. Having already tried her pan de piña on a previous visit, I warned a few members ahead of time that it would be hard to buy just one. Carmen’s home improvement project continues to be a work in progress, and our Board marveled at how well she is able to manage her business from such a small working space.

Filena makes these decorative flowers out of recycled aluminum cans to then sell for a profit.

After leaving with plenty of fresh breads, several members joked about what other products they would get to buy at the next client’s home. Fortunately for them, Filena is one of our most creative clients. Filena engages in several business activities which she carries out from her home in a rural area outside of the city. She makes and sells flowers made from recycled aluminum cans, jewelry and crocheted clothing and decorations for the home.

Filena invests her loans in purchasing her materials and is always hard at work to create beautiful pieces. Her determination is paying off for her, as she is making progress in improving her family’s standard of living. She is now a recipient of Adelante’s Home Improvement Loan product for about $1,490. Her creative style made for great souvenirs for our Board Members, giving her a boost in her day’s profits. With such numerous skills, I was shockedd to learn that Filena’s talents are all self-taught, developed on her own through perseverance and commitment to improving her family’s standard of living. Thanks to the business loans that Filena has taken out with Adelante over the years along with assemblies every two weeks, she has been able to expand upon her business ideas to handle a much larger loan than an average Adelante loan.

Blanca shows off earrings and other jewelry that she makes from home.

Our last client visit of the day followed the trend of empowered women producing goods from their homes. Blanca makes and sells jewelry, crochet and flower arrangements at home outside of Jutiapa, presenting our Board members with another souveneir opportunity. Each of these three women have worked hard to identify and develop their own skills to get their families ahead.

This Friday is International Women’s Day, a day to celebrate all that women are, the advances we have made and what we need to continue moving forward. On March 8, Adelante will be celebrating Carmen, Filena, Blanca and the thousands of other women who have taken on the challenge of leaving poverty behind by investing in their own businesses. Their innovative solutions in the face of poverty are an inspiration to everyone at Adelante.

Are you interested in supporting this content, as well as taking on grant research and writing responsibilities and campaign development as our Development Intern? Check out our posting here and apply!

Product Innovation with a Local Business

Maria runs her business with Lourdes and Jennifer off a main street in the city of El Progreso

Cositas is a small store in El Progreso, Yoro that sells materials and accessories for jewelry making. Just a few blocks from our El Progreso Branch Office and the central plaza, Maria, Lourdes and Jennifer work together to offer products and classes related to the making of jewelry. The three women’s expertise in training and design made them an ideal partner for our Product Innovation Workshops supported by Women’s Empowerment. Their knowledge and ability to work effectively with our clients resulted in a demand to bring them back for a second workshop in October after offering the first one in September.

I was thrilled to have been greeted by Lourdes and Jennifer immediately after arriving to their city!

In December during a visit with clients in the El Progreso and Choloma zones, I had been hoping to catch up with the women as well. As my luck would have it, the hotel I would be staying at is located right across the street from their business! Before I had even finished checking in, Lourdes had already spotted me and stopped over to greet me. While chatting with her and Jennifer I learned that upon the request of several of our clients, they had made the trip down to Intibucá to offer more of their jewelry making materials.

Trusting their expertise from my experience with them at the previous workshop, my visit to them had a second motive: getting a gift for someone I know who is interested in making jewelry. While Lourdes attended to other customers, Jennifer helped me out in bringing out the colors and styles that would best suit my friend and even sending me off with a couple different earring designs based on the beads I had bought as inspiration.

Many clients already had several pieces of jewelry ready to sell before the two day workshop had ended!

Just like with my friend, the making of jewelry gives our clients an additional source of income. Most clients who I spoke with seemed to plan on utilizing their new skill as a supplement to the businesses in which they have always invested loans. From women selling vegetables in the market to others selling cosmetics, these women already were identifying how they would get started making sales. And thanks to a new innovation developed out of the workshops by our Manager of Operations, they were able to get started right away.

One client’s young daughter proudly shows off her mother’s new products!

The first workshop had inspired Oscar to create a new product: the Always Enterprising Loan! Many clients had been eager to get to work with their new skills but hadn’t been prepared to make material purchases at the workshop. For the second workshop in October, we tested this new product with great success. Clients were thrilled to be able to get started right away and several even spent their downtime between the workshop days working with the material purchased with the loan to produce the jewelry.

While the loans gave our clients a small investment to start up their businesses, many had already run out of the necessary materials less than two months after the workshop had been held! On their return trip down to Intibucá, the women made sales to 10-12 of our clients—more than one third of those in attendance! The funding provided by Women’s Empowerment and the relationship created between Adelante and Cositas creates a dynamic network in which three organizations organized around women can support each other’s mission. Maria, Jennifer and Lourdes’ friendly and instructive manner with our clients, combined with their excitement for our own program makes future work with them something to look forward to.

On her visit to Intibucá for the workshop, a few hours from home, Jennifer got a chance to do a little sightseeing of her own!

Young Motherhood in Cortés, Honduras

Young mothers like this one use Adelante loans to invest in their businesses and provide for their families.

When meeting someone here for the first time, two of the first questions that are typically asked of me are if I’m married and if I have children. Back in New York, I would be shocked to be asked these questions but here in Honduras, it’s more of the norm for a 22 year old woman like myself to already have children. Amongst our client demographic, the rates are higher than the national averages. According to a report by the Guttmacher Institute, one half of 20-24 year old women give birth by the age of 20, with higher proportions among the least educated (70%), poorest (64%), and those living in rural areas (60%)[1].

With girls and young women becoming mothers at such young ages, marriage–whether formal or informal–also comes into play at an earlier age. However, these unions are not necessarily created out of a desire to build a family together but rather out of economic convenience. When talking with clients about their goals, I’ve heard more than once a woman who lives in a house owned by her husband tell me that she hopes to own her own home in the future, where she can raise her children. These women see greater independence and self-sufficiency as important factors in offering their children a path to a better life.

Karla with her two youngest children, Antonio and Jennifer.

Karla is a young 24 year old mother who lives with her husband in his home in the department of Cortés. She is the mother of three children: an 8 year old boy who lives with his father nearby, and her three year old son and one year old daughter who live with her and her husband. In order to care for her children while making a living for herself, she sells lotions, jewelry and clothing at home. Karla has been selling lotions for about a year and a half but held several jobs before being able to start her own business.

After finishing primary school, Karla left school and started working as a nanny at age 12. During her later teenage years she began working in a kitchen and then worked in a factory attaching the tags to garments.  Working from home, Karla is able to work under better conditions while caring for her two young children. With her husband working everyday in a city a 45 minute bus ride away, Karla must be available to look after her children during the day. She says that her husband’s income does not go toward her own expenses, explaining, “He works for himself and to provide what he needs for our children. I have to work so that I can support myself.”

Karla’s Credit Officer Daniel leading an educational lesson on calculating the costs of implementing a new business idea.

Although she was not able to study past primary school, Karla is now learning how to better run her business. When she started with Adelante, she was only selling lotions. The educational lessons provided by her Adelante Credit Officer every two weeks and her sister’s support inspired her to start selling jewelry. When I had met with her in December, she was getting ready to also begin selling clothing after several recent educational lessons have focused on how to implement a new idea into your business for greater earnings.

Oneida stands outside her home where she hopes to one day start a family.

In another assembly in Cortés, I met Oneida who also makes a living selling jewelry. In addition to her business, she also works as a nanny. There, she makes about $25/week (L. 500) for four days of work caring for two children and washing and ironing the family’s clothing. However, unlike Karla and most of our clients, Oneida does not have any children. Although she is married, she explains, “I want to wait to have children until we are able to support them better.” This perspective is not often found among rural poor Honduran women and is even less frequently practiced.

Oneida’s viewpoint shows hope of a change in the minds of Honduran women in relation to motherhood. However, with 40% of adolescent births being unplanned [1], it seems that among young Hondurans, change in action and not just perspective must occur to reduce the high adolescent fertility rate so that young Honduran women are able to improve their own standard of living before having to worry about providing for a family.

[1] “Early Childbearing in Honduras: A Continuing Challenge”. Guttmacher Institute. September 2006, No. 4. http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/2006/10/13/rib_Honduras_en.pdf

Holiday Preparations in Intibucá

The twin cities of La Esperanza and Intibucá were already in full holiday swing last week. With many locals, I ended the week at a Christmas event in the main plaza filled with dancing, music and ponche–a delicious pineapple drink served hot to cope with the cold weather.  Paintings from Intibucá, Marcala and Choluteca were on display farther from the stage, giving people a chance to appreciate the local art scene as well.

Here, a group of dancers perform in La Esperanza’s main plaza.

When I arrived to the plaza, the event was already underway, with a folk dance performance. The act ended with a few audience members of all ages brought up to dance. A young singer came up next to perform a couple songs, followed by a reggae duo from Corozal, a small town outside of La Ceiba where we also have clients.

Amidst the holiday preparations, Adelante clients were busy at work preparing for greater sales. It was great to meet so many women preparing their businesses for a Christmas sales boost. Although the increased profits made during the Christmas season will unlikely be kept up for the year to come, the extra money helps these women to save, and to offer their families a little bit more in the weeks to come.

On a stroll through the market with another Credit Officer, Yovanny, we saw Ricarda, who had stayed late at the market just to chat with a fellow Adelante client. Ricarda had sold out of her tortillas quickly and was happy to spend a couple hours supporting her friend as she finished off her tortillas sales. With such high demand for the staple, they don’t have to worry much about competing with each other. And by the time I met with Santos, she told me to come back early the next morning so that I could take a picture when her basket would still be full of rosquillas, quesadillas and other sweet breads popular in the area.

In anticipation for Christmas, Carmen has been busy making dulce de leche and preparing delicious chicken tacos.

I met Cintya at her stand, who has enjoyed greater shoe sales as customers are busy buying gifts and looking for new shoes for themesleves. Carmen was hard at work making dulce de leche when I popped in for a visit and lunch with our Intibucá Office Supervisor Ethel and Carmen’s Credit Officer David. From her home, Carmen prepares typical food like the tacos we ordered for lunch, but also started making and selling dulce de leche a couple years ago.

Ethel gets ready to dig into her order of chicken tacos!

Serapia’s convenience store will soon be ready to sell meat and other frozen products, thanks to her coming Individual Loan!

Serapia, however, must be the most joyful of them all. I met Serapia at her house where she lives with her husband and four of her five children. Here she runs a small convenience store and raises animals to sell. With Christmas approaching she has already sold two of her three turkeys and is getting ready to sell her three pigs. Unfortunately, she has struggled to keep her chickens safe from the mountain cats who come out at night, making these less profitable.

After four loan cycles Serapia has qualified for an Individual Loan, which she will be receiving this Friday! The loan of L. 12,000 ($600) will allow her to purchase a freezer for her store. With a new freezer, she’ll be able to see her profits increase, telling me, “The fridge I have is only good for storing drinks. With a freezer I’ll be able to start selling meats–products that my customers have frequently asked me for.”

From her home, Serapia is able to engage in multiple activities to support her family–selling basic goods, raising animals, attending to household chores and caring for her children.

She started her store three years ago with about $40 of earnings left over from selling her fattened pigs. After hearing about Adelante and becoming a member of a local assembly, Serapia is now able to make much larger investments into her business. Her first group loan was for about $192 and is now paying back a loan for about $305. The Individual Loan will now give her the opportunity to invest and grow her business in a way that she would not have been able to previously.

The Christmas season is a busy time for everyone at Adelante, as many clients look to take out new loans to take advantage of the holiday boost in the economy. As for me, I’m looking forward to my first Honduran Christmas and New Year. The holiday spirit shown in Intibucá and La Esperanza was just the thing to get me ready.

Erika: One New Client’s Bright Young Daughter

Erika models the necklace she made after the first day of the workshop.

I met Erika during our Jewelry Making Workshop in Intibucá during October, our most recent offering from our Product Innovation Workshops. At nine years old, Erika was the oldest daughter of a client at the workshop. As the workshop got started, Erika and her mother Rosa sat with the other women who had attended the first workshop, about a third of those in attendance. While her mother and the others at her table picked out new materials to work with and the newcomers got started with their tools, Erika reviewed the beads and material available and observed her mom and the others as they got to work. Erika’s excellent grades and hard work in school made it possible for her to miss two days so that she could accompany her mom to the workshop and learn how to make jewelry with her.

With Erika’s help, Dulce Maria is able to balance learning a new skill with caring for her son. By selling jewelry, Dulce Maria will be able to earn more money and better support her family.

While shy at first, Erika gradually began to talk to the other clients, and eventually became comfortable with me. As she adjusted to the setting at the workshop, Erika started to stray farther from her mom’s side, taking on multiple roles. In addition to making necklaces and earrings at Rosa’s side, Erika helped the other mothers out by acting as babysitter for the younger kids so they could focus on the workshop, cheered on clients who were having trouble with the tools and even helped me out by taking a few pictures. Although she enjoys helping her mother and coming up with new jewelry designs, Erika’s favorite class is math and she wants to be a teacher when she grows up. With her incredible ability to learn, she also revealed a natural teaching ability. Ana is a new client with Adelante and this was her first workshop. While she struggled with the tools, Erika came over to give her some encouragement, telling her, “You just have to remember to keep your hands still. I know you can do it!”. With Erika’s help, Ana learned to relax a little bit and was proud to show me the bracelet she had finally made when I returned to her work station. 

Maria (left) helps Erika become comfortable with the jewelry tools, while her mother looks on.

During the two day workshop, I got a chance to meet several inspring clients but was most deeply impacted by the potential that Erika had shown. Rosa tells me that they live in a somewhat isolated area in the mountains outside of La Esperanza and didn’t have electricity until just four years ago. Like her daughter, she also values education and had worked hard for years so that she could finish her high school degree just a couple years ago, while simultaneously raising her two children. Her economic responsibilities also extend to her mother who has become very sick and has lost the ability to talk. To help her husband cover their family’s expenses, Rosa makes tacos, enchiladas and tamales to sell outside the local soccer field during games every Sunday. Since the first Jewelry Workshop, she has begun to implement this new business and has now taken out her second Adelante loan, a much larger loan than her first–about $370 compared to $165. This larger investment signals to me that her new business venture has taken off well. With Erika’s ambition, Rosa’s new business and both of their hard work, Rosa will see her daughter grow up with greater opportunities than she was offered as a young woman. Like so many of our other clients, Rosa knows that it is up to her to shape the future for her children.

Rosa and Erika stand proudly to accept Rosa’s Workshop Certificate. At the end of the day Rosa told me, “And what she doesn’t know yet, I’ll teach her!”

Adelante and our clients in Intibucá are very appreciative of the support brought forth by Women’s Empowerment International. Without their funding and support, these workshops would not be possible. 

Fulfilling Dreams of a Better Home and Business

Carmen is a client from the department of Atlántida who bakes bread and pastries for a living, a business that she has had for five years. When I first met Carmen, she shared with me that building a kitchen was her her most sought after goal. With the help of Adelante‘s Home Improvement Loan product, she is now able to make her dream a reality for her family. She began with Adelante about two and a half years ago with a loan for about $126 and is now receiving her second Home Improvement Loan, with which she is building a kitchen. With her first Home Improvement Loan for L15,000 ($762), Carmen was able to replace her doors, windows and the wooden beams that support her roof. Her new loan for L18,050 ($925) will allow her to build an annex which will serve as the kitchen and dining room for both her family and out of which she will continue her business.

On the right, Carmen’s kitchen is beginning to take form.

Carmen lives with her husband and four children between the ages of 7 and 12. Her home currently has two bedrooms and a small main room which serves as the living room and kitchen. The Home Improvement Loan will bring great changes to Carmen’s life, as it will allow her to have greater space to work while caring for her four children.

Carmen’s freshly baked pastry filled with pineapple jam

 

With her small oven she bakes various types of breads and pastries, including the Honduran specialty, semitas, and pastries such as the one tp the right stuffed with pineapple jam. Carmen also bakes cakes for her customers upon request. While Carmen bakes and attends to clients at home, her husband goes out to sell her bread and pastries at a local market. I got the chance to try one of her pineapple stuffed pastries myself and would definitely stop by frequently for her baked goods if I lived in her community.

In this small corner Carmen currently does all the baking for her business, in addition to cooking for her family of six.

The construction started in September and will continue slowly as the rainy season is starting up. When the project finishes, she will no longer have to divide her already small living room into two to make room for her business. Before starting with Adelante, Carmen had worked with other microfinance institutions but left when a friend invited her to join her assembly. As she continues to grow her business, she plans in the future to build a septic tank with the profits from her business. With each loan Carmen makes with Adelante, she is raising her family’s standard of living and improving her business to make her more self-sufficient.

Passing Success from Mother to Daughter

Lidia with her daughter Lia and her two granddaughters. The daughter of another client stands in front.

Lidia Maura has been an Adelante client for five loan cycles now, or about 3 years. Her most recent loan was for L4,600 ($234). Although she has spent her life selling vegetables in rural communities outside of Tocoa in the department of Colon, she previously spent her days traveling all day to make her sales. Now, thanks to the help of Adelante, Lidia has her own stall in a popular local market, working from 6:00 in the morning until 4:00 in the afternoon.

Her five children, between the ages of 28 and 43, are now independent so she lives alone with her husband. During my visit she told me that she does not have the same concerns as the other women have who are still raising children, grandchildren or nieces and nephews. She tells me, “I’m old now and my only hope is just to finish the last years that God has given me comfortably.” Lidia’s satisfaction with Adelante is what drove her to invite her daughter, Lia Isabel into her assembly.

The assembly meeting that I visited was Lia’s very first with Adelante and she spoke with hope for a better future for her own two daughters. Although her husband works hard every day at his own job, Lia’s family has struggled a lot just to get by. When I asked her if there’s anything she would like others to know about her, she told me this, “We suffer a lot, we don’t have a house, we don’t have anything to call our own but we continue fighting.” Lia is optimistic about her new opportunity with Adelante. With her first loan, she plans to start up her own business selling clothing. We hope to see her progress as she works to provide greater opportunities for her two daughters who are two and four years old.

Lidia and Lia’s story is seen replicated throughout many assemblies, with mothers, daughters, aunts, nieces and cousins sharing with each other the opportunity to improve the standard of living of themselves and their entire family. One such client who has shared with her daughter the benefits of her loans with Adelante is Reyna, who lives in a rural community outside of La Ceiba. Reyna has had six loans with us, starting at L3,000 ($152). She has slowly grown her business selling clothing so that she can now take out loans for L5,250 ($266). Although this amount may still seem small to some, it makes a big difference for Reyna, who never had a full time job before. She says that she would occasionally wash clothing for local families for a small fee and do other small chores but that she could not provide a steady income to supplement her husband’s work as a day laborer.

Reyna with her daughter in their community.

Reyna’s youngest daughter is not a client of Adelante. However, her mother’s work is what inspired her to choose to study Business Administration as her career track at the local high school. She hopes to help her mother out and eventually have her own business someday.For now, Reyna just wants her daughter to stay in school and continue studying hard.

Reyna’s story demonstrates exactly how Adelante loans have a ripple effect, positively impacting those who live with and around the clients. While her daughter can learn the theories behind business administration in school, she can see firsthand the realities of running your own small business from her mother. The business education that Reyna, Lidia, Lia and the rest of our clients receive twice a month does not stop with them: The knowledge they acquire is passed to their friends and family, even if they are not Adelante clients.

Meet a Longtime and Determined Client from Atlántida

Aida, an entrepreneurial client from a rural community in Atlantida

Aida has been with Adelante for five years now and has been happy to slowly increase her loan amounts over the course of more than eleven loans with us! She lives in her own home with her husband, her daughter and two of her grandchildren. Five other children live in the country while two more have left for the United States. She cares for all five of her grandchildren as if they were her own children and is particularly responsible for the two that live with her.

Due to the fact that her daughter has a disability which prevents her from raising her children, Aida and her husband have assumed economic responsibility for their 4 and 5 year old grandchildren, as well as for their daughter. Although her eight children are all grown between the ages of 21 and 36, its clear that her financial commitments expand beyond her and her husband’s needs. The rest of her children are already married and working hard to provide for their own families.

Aida began her own business around the same time she became involved with Adelante. Prior to doing so, Aida worked for 25 years selling lottery tickets by traveling around the nearby communities. Without loans from Adelante, Aida and her husband would not have been able to grow the inventory of their store and support the growing needs of their extended family, such as primary school expenses for their grandchildren. On the weekends, Aida continues to sell lottery tickets as she has done in the past while her husband attends to the store. When he is not busy at the store, her husband works on the small parcel of land that they own to grow corn, beans and cassava. The majority of what is harvested is for their own consumption but they also sell any surplus for extra income.

Aida’s entrepreneurial spirit has been further demonstrated by the several loans she has taken out with us. She uses her loans to stock her convenience store. Her very first loan with Adelante was for only L500 or about $26. After five years of working with Adelante she has been able to gradually increase her loan amounts and of course, grow her business. Her most recent loan was for L12,030 or $633. These loans have made a significant impact in her life by enabling her to earn more income and enjoy an improved quality of life.

Since Aida began her business she has also worked with other microcredit institutions. However, she says that she prefers to work with Adelante because our loan process is much simpler than others. This makes a significant difference for micro entrepreneurs who wish to develop a profitable business but are limited by loan requirements or confusing processes.

Aida tells me that although times have become more difficult now, she is thankful for the loans and her husband’s support, which allow her to make progress each day. She hopes in the future to be able to take out a Home Improvement Loan. Aida says that any home improvements would begin with her kitchen, which has a dirt floor. Her enthusiasm for home improvement loans is unsurprising, as many of our clients have expressed interest in them since we began offering these loans last year. Her success in establishing her own convenience store after more than two decades of selling lottery tickets demonstrates the dedication and perseverance that is common among our clients.