El Buen Futuro ( A Good Future) Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to the El Buen Futuro ( A good future) group, consisting of Silverina Sanchez Vasquez, Ivelisse Bastardo Cadet, Santa Sanchez, Maricela Reyes, Juan Vasquez, Rosa Lopez Rambalde, Antonio De La Rosa, Leonidas Santana, Maria Santana Rosario, Paula Polanco, Antonia Sanchez, Rubdlania Vasquez, Mártires De La Rosa, Altagracia Mota, Mercedes Bautista by Esperanza International in Dominican Republic. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 6 months, Esperanza International will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Hello from Hato Mayor, Dominican Republic! I would like to give you an update on the loan you funded last year for the group El Buen Futuro ( A Good Future) and the group member you met, Silverina Sanchez.

The group El Buen Futuro lives in a rural village called Casa Colorasa on the eastern half of the Dominican Republic. This part of the country is known for the massive fields of sugar cane that once accounted for a huge portion of this country´s economy. However when the market started to decline in the 1990´s, many sugar refineries closed, including the one near this village. This left many people without a livelihood and no way to support their families.

El Buen Futuro is a group of entrepreneurs that are attempting (and succeeding!) in creating their own future. I was fortunate enough to be able to travel along the long dirt road through the sugar cane fields to visit Silverina and talk with her about her past loan that you helped fund.

Silverina runs a store where she sells gasoline and clothes. The village of Casa Colorada is a long bumpy ride from the capital where most people buy their clothes, so Silverina takes orders on what clothes people would like and in what sizes and travels to the capital once a month to buy those clothes. She runs her businesses on credit so that she first buys the clothes with her own money, then is paid by her clients when she brings the clothes back to the village. This limited the amount of clothes she could buy on her trips because she did not have much cash to spare. With the loan you helped fund, Silverina used the capital to take more orders and buy more clothes on each trip and was able to increase her volume of sales greatly.

When I asked what she did with the extra income, her eyes lit up as she proudly exclaimed that she was able to buy her very own cow. This is a huge accomplishment because cows are very valuable and can bring her a lot of income in the future.

Silverina is a very savvy business women and has been very successful, but she said that her goal is to finish up her high school degree (one more year to go!) so that she can study to become a nurse. Nursing is a lucrative and respected career in the Dominican and she hopes that as a nurse she can make enough money to send all three of her children (ages 10,6, and 3) to college. She says the most important thing to her is that her family stays together and is taken care of.

Silverina is a shining example of the opportunity microloans offer to people in need. If you would like to see some pictures of her village and other members of her community who have taken out microloans, follow the link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39859801@N07/sets/72157620600438274/

If you would like to continue supporting people in the Dominican Republic through Esperanza International, follow this link to view loans currently still fund raising:

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=44&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old

On behalf on Silverina, the group El Buen Futuro, and the microfinance institutuion Esperanza International, thank you for proving opportunity to those who need it most.

Tess Gellerman

Esperanza International Summer Fellow ´09