Bautista Lupaca Guevara

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Bautista Lupaca Guevara by Manuela Ramos / CrediMUJER in Peru. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 4 months, Manuela Ramos / CrediMUJER will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

As a Kiva Fellow living in Puno, Peru, I had the opportunity to meet with Bautista Lupaca Guevara and discuss her most recent loan from the Microfinance Institution (MFI), Manuela Ramos, through Kiva. Bautista is a member of the community bank, ““Ciudad Nueva” (“New City”) and has been taking out loans with Manuela Ramos for two years. With her most recent loan of $850, Bautista purchased clothing from Desaguadero, a town that is about two hours south of her hometown of Pilcuyo. Once she purchases the clothing, she immediately travels to Arequiipa, Peru, where she sells the clothing for a small profit. She makes this 20 hour journey about once a week.

Bautista is a mother of two teenage children and hopes that the profits she makes through her clothing sales will help afford her children with the opportunity to study in the University in Puno, Peru. She appreciates the loans from Manuela Ramos because they allow her to increase her capital and buy more clothing in bulk, making her journey more profitable (and a bit more difficult because she has to carry the clothing!).

Below is a short video of Bautista Lupaca Guevara.

A glimpse at the MFI, Maneula Ramos: Manuela Ramos is an organization that was founded in Peru in 1978 and is dedicated to the implementation of programs and projects that advance the rights of Peruvian women. They have more than ten offices throughout Peru and seven of those are operating with a microfinance program. Their programs include educating women, primarily in the rural areas of Peru, about gender equality, domestic violence, women’s rights and environmental awareness. Twelve years ago, Manuela adopted a Microfinance program, CrediMujer, that assists groups of 15-30 women in coming together, forming a community bank and taking out a loan together that they use for their individual businesses; this is where Kiva comes in, providing interest free capital for Manuela Ramos to loan. These community banks allow women to work together in idea building and sharing, create accountability to repay the loan (if one women defaults then the entire community bank defaults and no woman in this bank may take out another loan) and enable the organization to work more efficiently (the loan officers make visits to the community bank meetings rather than each individuals place of business).