Jazmines-uno Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to the JAZMINES-UNO group, consisting of Constanza Salazar Flores, Salome Veizaga Reyes, Ofelia Juana Mamani De Zambrana, Liboria Veizaga Reyes, Elvia Mariela Huallpa Salvador, Justina Cipita QuecaÑa, Carmen Quispe De Aro, Deisy Salazar Flores, Concepcion Salvador De Huallpa, Martha Moya Choque, Carlota Sandoval Cerezo, Julia Quicania Copa, Sonia Rojas Sanchez by Fundación Agrocapital, a partner of ACDI/VOCA in Bolivia. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 5 months, Fundación Agrocapital, a partner of ACDI/VOCA will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

The Los Jasmines group has been doing pretty well with their Kiva loan. In their last loan cycle there were a few members who didn’t make their repayments on time, causing problems within the group, but things have been going much more smoothly during this loan cycle. I met with three of the group’s members on Friday afternoon: Sonia, Julia and Justina.

Sonia has been a member of the group for three or four loan cycles now (it’s been so long she can’t remember). She sells men’s, women’s and children’s clothing from a mobile cart,* and travels from neighborhood to neighborhood to look for customers. She used her loan of 4,000 bolivianos (US$571) to buy more clothes, and says that her sales have improved slightly since then. Sunday is her best day for sales, when she brings in about 1000 bolivianos (US$140), of which 40% or 50% is profit.

Across the street from Sonia live Julia and Justina, a mother and her daughter who are also both members of Los Jasmines. They are both in their first loan cycle with the group, though Julia (the mother) used to take out loans from AgroCapital with another group. She’s relieved to be working with Los Jasmines instead of the previous group, which she says got into some serious fights over members who didn’t pay their installments. Julia, Justina, and Justina’s husband make straw mattresses from their home. It is impressive to watch them work—they work very quickly as a team, and produce as many as 20 or 30 mattresses each day, which they sell to a local distributor for 25 to 35 bolivianos (US$3.40 to $5) depending on the size. The two women combined their loans (1,500 bolivianos apiece, or US$214) and used the money to buy more materials to make mattresses (namely straw and strong plastic for the outside).

Julia and Justina are pictured below with Justina’s husband and their 11-month-old son.

*Sonia did not use her loan to start a grocery store from her home, as was mistakenly reported in the group’s original Kiva profile.