Elberta

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

Elberta used her Kiva loan of 2000 soles to buy sacks of potatoes, salt, oil, pasta, and soap for her lunch stand at the F. Vivanco Market. She sales her sales are down lately; since the cost of basic foodstuffs has increased in recent months, she was forced to raise her own prices, and now has fewer clients each day. Still, sales did improve temporarily during the holiday season, she says.

Elberta has been a FINCA Peru client for 14 loan cycles now. “It’s been a big help,” she says, and loans have allowed her to buy a second food stand and make some home improvements.

Elberta works hard, and she says the work is very tiring. She comes to the market at 7am each day, and works until 3 or 4 in the afternoon. She works standing all day, and spends each evening preparing food for the next day. She says the work is very tiring.

Elberta is originally from Cusco, and moved to Ayacucho because her husband her husband is Ayacuchan, but he abandoned Elberta and her eight children years ago. “I’m father and mother to my children,” she says. Still, thanks to her hard work, her children are getting ahead in life. Three of them are now in college, while the other five are still in elementary and high school. Elberta hopes to send them to college, too.

Elberta has been saving up to build a new house on a plot of land she owns in the Leonpampa neighborhood of Ayacucho. Her goal for the future is to move into the house and open up a general store and chicken restaurant, because she thinks this will be less tiring than her current business.