Sonia Terán Ochoa

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Sonia Terán Ochoa by Emprender in Bolivia. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 8 months, Emprender will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

As a Kiva Fellow working with Kiva’s local partner MFI in Bolivia, Emprender, I recently had the opportunity to visit with Sonia, a Kiva funded entrepreneur.

Sonia runs a very well established and equipped store in the Obrajes neighborhood of La Paz, Bolivia. She sells a huge variety of items including vegetables, pasta, sugar, grains, household cleaning items, drinks, first aid items, and other regularly used products. Her mother started this business over 25 years ago. Sonia took over about 10 years ago when her mother retired. She and her two children, as well as her mother live in the house at the back of the store. When we arrived, at the lunch hour, there was a delicious smell coming from the back of the store. Her mother makes lunch for the whole family and Sonia is convinced there is no better cook in La Paz.

She used her Kiva funded loan to re-stock her store as prices suddenly spiked. This prevented her from taking a large hit during this economic crisis.

Sonia hopes to open a butcher shop down the road this year. She says that meat is the only thing her store doesn’t carry and that while there isn’t space in the same room, there is a market for it. This will take a lot of capital, so she is waiting a bit, but plans to move forward with this new endeavor soon.

It was a pleasure to meet Sonia. Thank you for supporting her, Emprender and Kiva!

If you would like to read more about Bolivia, and the experience of Kiva Fellows here, please check out our blog: link text

As a Kiva Fellow working with Kiva’s local partner MFI in Bolivia, Emprender, I recently had the opportunity to visit with Sonia, a Kiva funded entrepreneur.

Sonia runs a very well established and equipped store in the Obrajes neighborhood of La Paz, Bolivia. She sells a huge variety of items including vegetables, pasta, sugar, grains, household cleaning items, drinks, first aid items, and other regularly used products. Her mother started this business over 25 years ago. Sonia took over about 10 years ago when her mother retired. She and her two children, as well as her mother live in the house at the back of the store. When we arrived, at the lunch hour, there was a delicious smell coming from the back of the store. Her mother makes lunch for the whole family and Sonia is convinced there is no better cook in La Paz.

She used her Kiva funded loan to re-stock her store as prices suddenly spiked. This prevented her from taking a large hit during this economic crisis.

Sonia hopes to open a butcher shop down the road this year. She says that meat is the only thing her store doesn’t carry and that while there isn’t space in the same room, there is a market for it. This will take a lot of capital, so she is waiting a bit, but plans to move forward with this new endeavor soon.

It was a pleasure to meet Sonia. Thank you for supporting her, Emprender and Kiva!

If you would like to read more about Bolivia, and the experience of Kiva Fellows here, please check out our blog: link text