Mujeres Activas Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to the Mujeres Activas group, consisting of Gladys Denis, Teodora Ortega, Eleuteria Cabañas, Lucia Ojeda, Maria Alonso, Zunilda Morais, Dominica Colina, Mirta Ortiz, Delfina Avalos, Maria Ortiz, Delfina Avalos, Gloria Escurra, Silvina Caceres, Eusebia Arzamendia, Griselda Benegas, Maria Palacios by Fundación Paraguaya in Paraguay. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 4 months, Fundación Paraguaya will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

The members of the Mujeres Activas de Santa Maria recently welcomed me at one of their monthly meetings. They are a lively, friendly group of women who dedicate themselves to a variety of activities to generate income for their families. On this particular morning the gathering, which took place at the home of a woman who runs a small photocopy store, had a joint purpose—the women were present to sign up for a new loan and to participate in a training session with Liliana Lugo, a loan officer with Fundación Paraguaya (FP) who works at the branch office here in Encarnación.

As part of FP’s Mujeres Emprendadores (Women’s Entrepreneurship) program, participants receive trainings on various topics such as money management and communication skills. Because there were some new group members present, Liliana opened the session by reminding the women why FP believes it is important to support them: despite not always having formal businesses, these women are capable of carving out their own income generating activity, and FP believes that women are more likely than men to invest their income directly in their family’s well-being. As the women progress through the program, complete more training sessions, and pay back their loans, FP gives them access to a larger amount of credit, which allows many of them to “graduate” from an informal money-making activity to a more stable business.

The day’s topic was team work. As you can see in the video above, during the session the women learned about the importance of speaking honestly, respecting one another’s opinions, and staying focused during meetings. They broke into groups to discuss what characteristics make a good team-member and to draft some questions they would ask a potential group member to determine how well she would work in a team.

But when I spoke to two individual group members, Gladys Denis and newer member Pilar Martinez, it was clear that the Mujeres Activas weren’t lacking much in the way of teamwork. Gladys earns her income as a tailor and Pilar sells undergarments—they invest their loans in merchandise and raw materials. While Gladys and Pilar were quick to tell me that access to credit has “absolutely” improved their individual economic situations, both of them spoke enthusiastically about what it means to them to participate in this endeavor with their neighbors and friends. When one member is having a difficult month, they explained, the women work together to earn extra money on that woman’s behalf—baking and selling large batches empanadas, for example, or organizing an event at a local soccer field. Some of this collective money is saved to cover the expenses incurred by the group’s president and treasurer when they travel to the office of Fundación Paraguaya to make payments. Most groups of people don’t make these types of sacrifices for one another without a healthy dose of teamwork; I’m guessing the women of Mujeres Activas had a pretty easy time with the day’s training.

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