8 De Diciembre Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to the 8 de Diciembre, consisting of Justina Jimenez, Cristina Leyes, Gladys Justiniano, Nimia Quintana, Maria Griselda Quintana, Patricia Gonzalez, Claudia Centurion, Elida Carballo, Mariluz Justiniano, Dora Arevalos, Juana Lopez, Cinthia Gimenez, Claudelina Gimenez, Maria Gimenez, Lourdes Gonzalez, Elva Esteche, Antonia Rivarola, Nimia Duarte, Liz Marlene Cuevas, Clotilde Rodriguez by Fundación Paraguaya in Paraguay. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 3 months, Fundación Paraguaya will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

When I arrived to observe one of their weekly meetings, the women of the 8 de Diciembre Women’s Group in Villa Elisa, Paraguay were engaged in a spirited discussion about the group’s shared savings account. When the participants in Fundación Paraguaya’s (FP) Women’s Entrepreneurship program make payments on their loans, FP also encourages them to also place a small amount of money in a group savings account, which is held by a local cooperative. At yesterday’s meeting, 8 de Diciembre’s treasurer passed around the group’s most recent bank statement: collectively, the members have saved just over $1,000, an impressive sum in the context of their income level. The women were pleased, but some said that they felt left out of the loop regarding the account’s performance and that a better system was needed to keep track of which members were contributing to the account and which were not. With the help of FP loan officer Ariel Neuman, the women spent some time figuring out how to address this problem and considering ways to make the logistics of payment-day run a little more smoothly.

On the business side of things, the women said they were doing well and that no one was having too much trouble making her payments. Since paying back the loan they received from Kiva, the women of 8 de Diciembre have taken out another credit from FP. They will soon finish payments on this most recent loan and they plan to continue with another credit as soon as possible.

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