November KIVA Loan

November's KIVA loan goes to Guillermina, a 63 year old single woman in Santa Cruz Bolivia who has no children. Her business is selling empanadas and fruit drinks in the streets. She is enterprising, independent, dependable, active, responsible and hard-working. She has lived her adult life alone and lives in her own house made of brick which has water and electricity.

Her desire to improve her life led her to form a group of people with businesses like: plaster handicrafts, selling soft drinks, selling clothing, the selling fruit, selling tomatoes, a bookstore and cosmetic sales, to request a loan to improve their commercial activities. (She is seated in the photo)

Guillermina is dark skinned, has long black hair and medium stature. Her native tongue is Quechua and she speaks Spanish for her business. Her business is selling empanadas: which are a light pastry with a salty or sweet filling and either baked in the oven or fried, depending on the filling. The filling might be beef, chicken, fish, vegetables or fruit. The pastry is generally made of wheat flour, although she also uses corn flour and other grains. They are often eaten with a traditional fruit drink like mocochinchi (dried peach boiled with cinnamon and sugar), which is very sought after on the very hot summer days that come in Santa Cruz.

Guillermina walks with a basket filled with empanadas on one arm and a large thermos and a packet of plastic cups in the other. This under a burning sun that gets to 88-90 F degrees each day. She walks along the busiest streets of Santa Cruz.

This is her first loan with the institute in the five years since she started her business. Her dream is to have a snack bar. At the age of 63, having worked at hard physical labour for many years walking all day carrying a a heavy load is hard for her to do, and she needs a less strenuous way of making a living.

For these reasons Guillermina is requesting a loan to buy tables and chairs to expand her business so she can sell her empanadas and fruit drinks from a snack bar, rather than having to carry them through the streets all day. 

The KIVA partner in Bolivia is Emprender. Emprender has been working in Bolivia since 1999 and is dedicated to the development of its clients and the improvement of their quality of life. Emprender offers both urban and rural clients the opportunity to obtain financial products tailored to fit their needs and businesses. This include housing loans, salary loans, “opportunity” (short-term) loans, and student loans allowing young people to go on to obtain a college education. Emprender also offers free medical consultations and health classes given by trained doctors.

This is a Group Loan.  In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a larger group of individuals. The group is there to provide support to the members and to provide a system of peer pressure, but groups may or may not be formally bound by a group guarantee. In cases where there is a group guarantee, members of the group are responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members in the case of delinquency or default.

While the group's description features Guillermina and her business the other members of the group will each receive an equal share of the loan's total $3,250 to use to invest in their own business. As you can see from the photo, most are young people, some have very young children, but all are eager and will work hard to improve their family's lives. Please consider visiting KIVA and lending $25.00 to help a hard-working person in the Third World today.