Elena Mamani Palacios

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

Elena Mamani Palacios has been taking out loans with the Community Bank, Inmaculada Concepcion, and the MFI, Manuela Ramos for over one year and she has seen her small grocery store grow and has been able to sell more of her decorative blankets. Her loans have provided her with the necessary initial capital to expand her businesses by allowing her to purchase more goods in bulk, which increases her profit margins. With her most recent loan of $975, which she is on track to repay in full, she purchased products for her store, such as noodles, rice, sugar and snacks and purchased wool to continue making blankets.

Elena buys the food from a supplier who comes from the nearby town of Puno, Peru, to her town, Juli, along the shores of Lake Titicaca and sells the food in her small store. In addition to working in her store almost everyday, Elena makes blankets/tapestries during the day and night and sells them in the touristy town of Cuzco, Peru. Her dreams are to one day purchase a larger store and to help her children, ages 16 and 11, attend University.

Below is a short video of Elena Mamani Palacios.

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).