Justa Mariluz Pineda Jilapa

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Justa Mariluz Pineda Jilapa 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.

As a Kiva Fellow living in Puno, Peru, I had the opportunity to meet with Justa Mariluz Pineda Jilapa and discuss her most recent loan. Mariluz is a member of the community bank, “Las Mujeres Unidas al Triunfo”, and has been receiving loans from the MFI, Manuela Ramos for three years. With her most recent loan of $325, she purchased potatoes and cereals to sell at her small grain stand, which she inherited from her mother and is located in the Central Market of Puno. Mariluz usually purchases the supplies from large trucks that come to the market biweekly, but sometimes travels to Juliaca (a 2 hour roundtrip journey from Puno) to buy the food, because it is substantially cheaper there.

Mariluz believes the loans from Manuela Ramos have helped her increase her capital a little and this has led to a small increase in profits, but not much. Right now, sales are low and she is just barely getting by. Mariluz studied education at the University of Puno, but there is little work in this field and too many people trying to teach. She says that although she would like to find work as a teacher, her more realistic goal is eventually saving enough money to buy a small store in Puno.

Below is a short video of Justa Mariluz Pineda Jilapa.

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).