Sonia Del Socorro Urbina Arevalo

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Sonia del Socorro Urbina Arevalo by AFODENIC in Nicaragua. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the 8 months of this loan, AFODENIC will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Sonia Del Socorro Urbina Arevalo’s effusive personality was immediately apparent as soon as she welcomed us into her store one afternoon last week. Here in Managua, Nicaragua, Sonia runs a pulperia, which is the local name for a neighborhood store that sells a variety of goods and is often run out of the front of the owner’s home.

As you may remember, you helped fund a loan on Kiva to Sonia at the beginning of 2009. This journal update was written for her current loan (http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=124884), but we thought you might also be interested to hear how Sonia has been doing since you supported her in the past. Last week, we got the chance to stop by Sonia’s aptly-named Pulperia Sonia and see how things have been going with her loan and her store. She spoke enthusiastically about the shop and couldn’t have been friendlier.

Sonia applied for her loan in order to be able to expand her business and so, with the money from the loan, she has purchased goods to sell like rice, beans, oil, and soap. These products are especially essential to her business because she told us that they are the most popular items she offers. These products, however, don’t reflect the depth of her inventory: looking around as we sat in chairs off to the side, we could see that her customers could buy everything from twine to toothbrushes and from white bread to instant noodles. If a customer wants something she doesn’t have, especially clothing or cosmetics, she’ll get it for them. On weekends, when she does her best business, she also sells homemade soup.

Pulperia Sonia, which is located on the enclosed porch area of Sonia’s house, opened about four years ago. Sonia started it with her own money, and then after about a year someone told her about AFODENIC, the microfinance institution that is one of Kiva’s field partners in Nicaragua and that disbursed her loan. Now she is on her fourth loan cycle. Sonia, who has a nine-month-old baby, opens the store at 5 a.m. every day, since her husband gets up for work at that time anyway. She also has a niece who lives with her and helps out in the pulperia when she’s not in school. Sonia says that business has been good and that she is thinking about hiring an employee.

Check out the video below for Sonia’s own words—and a little glimpse of her effervescence!

Thank you for reading this journal update,

Victoria Kabak, Kiva Fellow, AFODENIC

To lend to another AFODENIC borrower:

www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&queryString=afodenic&status=fundRaising&gender=All§ors[]=All®ions[]=All&sortBy=Popularity

To learn more about AFODENIC:

www.afodenic.com

www.kiva.org/about/aboutPartner?id=98

To join the “Amigos de AFODENIC” lending team:

www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam?team_id=5971