Ana De Gutierrez Segovia

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Ana De Gutierrez Segovia by Fundación Agrocapital in Bolivia. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 18 - 24 months, Fundación Agrocapital will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

I visited Doña Ana at her home in the outer rings of the city of Santa Cruz on a sunny Tuesday morning. She welcomed me into her home and showed me her sewing room, where she spends much of her day working making dresses and other custom-made clothing for her customers, who are mostly women from the neighborhood.

Doña Ana used her Kiva loan to continue an unfinished construction project on her home, where she and her husband are planning to put in a small neighborhood store. Unfortunately, she tells me, the $1,025 loan she took out was not enough money to do very much, so the construction is still only about halfway finished. “We’re building it, bit by bit,” she says. Cement prices have risen sharply in recent months, so it’s a tough time to be working on construction projects. Doña Ana and her husband are talking with their loan officer, Don Carlos, to see if they can refinance their loan so that they can finish the project and open the store.

When I ask her what her dreams for the future are, Doña Ana is a bit pessimistic. She says she would certainly like to make lots of clothing and sell her wares in large markets, but she doesn’t think that will ever happen.