Vilma Angelica's Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to the group, consisting of Vilma Angelica, Damelta, Luz Morena by FINCA Peru in Peru. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 6 months, FINCA Peru will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

This is an update about Vilma Angelica Poma Cuadros’s group, which you made a loan to through FINCA Peru in June of this year. Vilma, Damelta and Luz have been doing relatively well, and all agree that their participation in the group has been a very positive factor in their lives. Vilma goes so far as to say, “FINCA is my father; FINCA is my husband.” She has been working with FINCA since 1998, and says that her businesses has grown, bit by bit. Damelta says that FINCA helped her launch her family’s businesses (she sells ice cream from a cart while her husband and son buy and sell cars in Andahuaynas, a small town outside of the city of Ayacucho), and she is very grateful. Luz tells me that if it weren’t for FINCA, she would have to buy ice cream on credit from D’Onofrio (the predominant local ice cream company), which would end up being much more costly.

The three women still work long hours at very demanding jobs. Vilma, for example, has three different businesses: she runs a small grocery store, she raises and sells “cuyes” (guinea pigs, a Peruvian delicacy) and chickens to sell to restaurants and by special order, and she also knits and embroiders. She tells me that she has to do all of this just to get by and provide for her family. Luz and Damelta nod in agreement. Vilma has five children, two of whom she still supports financially, and she has to be both a father and a mother to her kids, since she is a widow.

All three women have paid off their loans in full.* Vilma and Damelta will continue with the Union II Village Bank for its next loan cycle, while Luz will have to sit out this round. She will be traveling to Huancaya, a nearby town, with her husband and daughters to relax for a little while, and so will be unable to attend the obligatory weekly group meetings. She is having a house built in Huancaya for her family to move into, but it isn’t finished yet, so she expects to return to Ayacucho and continue working with the Union II Village Bank in the future. She tells me that she is sad to leave the group, even though it’s just for a few months. She has been working with them for the past two years.

Luz is pictured below with her 9-month-old daughter, who accompanies her to weekly group meetings.

*Note: Because Kiva’s system for posting repayments is slightly delayed and doesn’t record payments until they have been deposited into lenders’ accounts, the group appears to have repaid less of its loan than they actually have.