Luis

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Luis by Microfinanzas PRISMA in Peru. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 6 months, Microfinanzas PRISMA will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Luis Tinoco Rodriguez and his wife Maribel live in the veritable artist colony town of San Pedro de Cajas in the sierras of Junín Province, Peru. The entire town has a well-earned reputation for tapestries and weaving; the trade and skills are passed down from generation to generation. Mr. Tinoco Rodriguez studied painting at the school in San Pedro and graduated in 2002. Luis had been living in Lima, pursuing his career as a painter, when one of his clients heard he was from San Pedro de Cajas. With this new business relationship, Luis moved back to San Pedro a year to a year-and-a-half ago to start weaving purses, tapestries, clothing, etc., of his own and bringing them (and some of his neighbors’ work) to Lima every week. The buyer in Lima then exports the goods to Argentina and the United States. Luis makes and buys around 500 bags a week to bring to Lima. For each one, he makes about 40 to 50 centavos in profit; the actual amount is determined by each bag’s color and quality. Everything in the picture was made by Luis in his workshop in the back of his house. He has three weaving machines of varying sizes and uses (ie one makes cloth to be cut into bags while another allows him to weave pictures into tapestries like those on the top left). His goal is to expand his business and export more goods; the pending Free Trade Agreement with the USA ought to help. Luis gave me a tour of workshop and attempted to teach me how to weave the cloth he uses for bags; I will post the video shortly.