Elsa Maria Nuñez Tellez

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Elsa Maria Nuñez Tellez by AFODENIC in Nicaragua. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 12 months, AFODENIC will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Elsa has big plans for home and work, and seems to be moving ahead rapidly.

She still has her business making food, but when we stopped by her home last Thursday there was no cooking in sight. Everything was moved out of the way because of the construction on improvements to her house, of which there have been plenty of late, funded through her Kiva loan. As she explained, you can’t have sawdust and cement particles getting into your food, so in the meantime she has been doing the cooking at her mother’s place.

With her loan money they were able to purchase building materials and put in a new wall dividing her property from the neighbor (because there wasn’t any real divider when they got the property), and in the future is planning a wall on the other side. First she decided to put in new secure doors in the back of the house for security. They live across the street from a military installation, so it’s a pretty safe neighborhood. But she explained that there are still some thieves that will try in any area. In fact, when someone did try to break into her home, they couldn’t get through these new doors. Another part of the loan was used to make the roof out of more permanent material.

They also used the money to change up the electrical system for the house, because they have a new exciting project. She showed us a new tortilla making machine that can crank out from 150-200 tortillas in an hour. She has a few other improvements she hopes to do in the future so they can properly install this machine, and then start making tortillas to sell to some of the supermarkets here in Managua.

In short, the loan helped make improvements that helped protect her family from crime, improve her housing conditions, and invest in a new business project. She seemed very pleased that she has been able to make so many changes recently, and hopes to keep moving forward.

To see part of our interview with Elsa Maria Nunez and check out her tortilla machine, you can see the video below!

Don’t forget to re-lend your money once it is paid back to your Kiva account! To see other loans on Kiva posted by AFODENIC in Nicaragua, click here!