Gloria Maxima Tacuri Criollo

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to GLORIA MAXIMA TACURI CRIOLLO by Fundación ESPOIR in Ecuador. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the 3 months of this loan, Fundación ESPOIR will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Gloria used her loan money to buy chickens, pigs and cows, but she hasn’t seen any results yet, since she bought the animals when they were small and is still fattening them up. Her sales at the market haven’t been very good lately and have dropped a bit because the local livestock fair closed for the season, so she can’t go out to sell her animals as she normally would. Gloria has been taking care of her elderly mother for the past 8 years, because she has many ailments, like nervousness, bronchitis, heart problems and osteoporosis. Gloria says that once they brought her on an outing to the El Paraiso Park in the city of Cuenca, and her mom started yelling that she was being kidnapped, since it had been a very long time since she had left the house. It pains Gloria to see her mother so sick, but it doesn’t stop her from continuing forward with her life, and she is very grateful for what God has given her. She is also grateful to Fundación ESPOIR because thanks to the loans they offer her, she is getting ahead in life.

Original text in Spanish by Pedro Salvatierra

La Sra. Gloria invirtió el dinero del prestamo en pollos, chanchos y vacas, pero aun no ha tenido las ganancias por que los compro pequeños y se encuentran en proceso de crianza y engorde, las ventas en las ferias no se encuentra muy bien y bajaron un poco por que hubo un cierre temporal de la feria del ganado por ese motivo le impidió salir a vender sus anímeles como lo hace normalmente, cuida de su mamá hace 8 años que tiene una avanzada edad y padece de muchas enfermedades como nervios, bronquitis, bronquios, corazón hinchado, osteoporosis, nos cuenta que una vez le llevaron al parque el paraíso en la ciudad de Cuenca, para distraerse y su mamá comenzó a gritar que la estaban secuestrando por que hace mucho tiempo que dejo de salir de su casa, sufre mucho con su madre enferma, pero no es un impedimento para seguir adelante y ser una persona agradecida con lo que Dios le brinda, se siente muy agradecida con la fundación por que gracias a los prestamos que le ofrecen esta saliendo adelante en la vida.

Dear Lender,

As you may know, all Kiva loans are actually administered by local field partners. For the past couple of months, I have been working as a Kiva Fellow with Fundación ESPOIR, a brand new Kiva field partner. Over the course of the summer, I’ve had the privilege of meeting Espoir’s first batch of Kiva borrowers and hearing their stories.

A couple of the most memorable stories I heard were from two young women who are using loans to help run their small businesses while also pursuing their education. The first, Verónica Acurio, worked for years in her parents’ restaurant before deciding to open a restaurant of her own. She now has her own restaurant and uses the profits to pay for medical school. She has one year of studies left before becoming a full-fledged doctor. Despite her impressive accomplishments, Verónica is very down to earth and not at all boastful. Before her Kiva interview, most of her fellow group members didn’t even realize that she is a medical student.

Another Kiva client, Ana Lucia Chapa, lives in the rural community of Turi with her husband and her four-year-old son. Monday through Friday, she makes the long commute to and from the city of Cuenca, where she works full-time as a housekeeper. She also raises guinea pigs, sheep, and cows at home for extra income. Ana Lucia dropped out of school when she was 14 to start working so that she could help support her family, and so she never finished high school. After she got married, though, she decided that she wanted to be a veterinarian, and started going to school on the weekends to earn her high school diploma. She still has eight or nine years of education ahead of her before she can officially become a veterinarian, but she has a great attitude and is determined. Her family has been supportive and her parents and in-laws help take care of her son while she works and studies.

Both Veronica and Ana Lucia are 23 years old, just like me. When I heard their stories, I was impressed that they could juggle so many responsibilities simultaneously and overcome such daunting obstacles in pursuit of higher education, which is more than I can say for myself. Both are cheerful and upbeat despite the difficulties they face and the long hours they put in, seven days a week. I hope to return to Cuenca ten years from now and find them both in white coats, running their own successful businesses of another sort.

Kiva clients aren’t the only people at ESPOIR with inspiring stories of upward mobility. I’ve also had the privilege of meeting staff at ESPOIR’s headquarters and four different branch offices. All received me warmly and touched me with their hospitality and generosity, but I was particularly impressed by a handful of female ESPOIR loan officers who were once village bank clients themselves. For these women, becoming loan officers is an important step forward in their lives. They find the work difficult but also quite gratifying, and are happy to be helping clients because they know how it feels to be a small-scale entrepreneur in need of business capital.

It has been exciting and inspirational to see success stories like these during my fellowship with Fundación ESPOIR. I hope you continue to support Ecuadorian entrepreneurs through ESPOIR!

To search for currently fundraising ESPOIR loans on Kiva, click here . No currently fundraising clients? Please check back soon! In the meantime, you can join ESPOIR’s Kiva Lending Team.

Best regards,

Cynthia McMurry

Kiva Fellow