Silvestre

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Silvestre 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.

Mr. Silvestre Isidro Chuquín is a potato farmer in Chires, a very small pueblo in the sierras of Junín Province, Peru. Your loan marked the third loan that he has received from Microfinanzas PRISMA. A community leader, Silvestre has worked with several NGOs throughout the years on environmentally sustainable projects for the area. His dreams include reforesting 24 hectares of the community with pine trees and creating an local industry, with an NGO’s help, to export mushrooms that grow under and around the trees. He worked for the Peruvian government eight years ago.

With a good sense of macroeconomics, Mr. Isidro Chuquín told me that he uses the loans to support him and his family throughout the year. The potato and albergha harvests every 6 months and 1000 soles now may not be worth the same then as now. (sidenote: Peru in the late 1980s and early 1990s suffered hyperinflation and this memory is strong in the area. Indeed much of history weighs on the residents; initially many villagers were afraid of me [until they heard I was with PRISMA] because a gringo had taken pictures of kids in the ‘80s and they’d then been targeted by Sendero terrorists) Silvestre has a large family – a wife and eight children. His fields are next to his house and he does not use any workers because he has his own irrigation system. He owns two hectares that produce about 2400 kilos from 40 sacks of seeds. Thank you for your loan.

I made a video of my journey to Silvestre's village, which can be found on the Fellowsblog here: http://fellowsblog.kiva.org/2008/12/21/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-kiva-fellow/