La Union En Progreso Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to the La Union en Progreso group, consisting of Marta Iris Reyes, Maria Paredes, Hipolita Vasquez Romero, Josefa Reyes De Ortiz, Miguel Santana by Esperanza International, a partner of HOPE International in Dominican Republic. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 6 months, Esperanza International, a partner of HOPE 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 about the group microloan you helped fund last year.

Maria Reyes is a 32 year old mother of 4 (ages 16,14,11, and 6) and a member of La Union en Progreso, or Unity in Progess, in the small village of Morquecho. Maria started her own cafeteria near the elementary school where all her children attend school. She cooks breakfast in the morning for the children and has snacks for them after school. In the back she also sells clothes to members of her community. With the loan you helped fund, she was able to buy more cookies, rice, and cooking oil to feed the children at school. An increasing amount of mothers choose to send their child to school with money to buy breakfast from Maria and her business is doing extremely well.

There is one other cafeteria that serves the children at school and she said her business has been so successful because of her friendly attitude and clean store.

Maria would like to expand her business even more and her goal is to make enough money to finish building her house. Since it is very hard for Dominicans to save enough to buy or build their own houses, they many times build it section by section out of cement, leaving it for years at a time before they can add more. If you would like to see Maria´s business, housing project, and the village where she lives, visit the following link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/39859801@N07/sets/72157620462127871/

If you would like to keep supporting entrepreneurial Dominicans through Esperanza International, follow this link to see loans that are currently fund raising:

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

On behalf of Maria, La Union en Progreso, and the microfinance institute Esperanza International, thank you for providing opportunities to those who need it most.

Tess Gellerman

Esperanza International Summer Fellow ´09