Tulipanes Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to TULIPANES Group, consisting of EULOGIA, MARISOL, KARIN JIMENA, MARIA ISABEL, AMPARO, PATRICIA NARDA, JHOAN ALEJANDRA, GILBERTO, KAREN SANDY, DULIA ELIZABET, ERIKA CICIEL, ANGELA by Fundación Agrocapital, a partner of ACDI/VOCA in Bolivia. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the 4 months of this loan, Fundación Agrocapital, a partner of ACDI/VOCA will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Today, I went to visit Tulipanes, which was a gregarious group of women of all ages that were celebrating making their last repayment of this loan cycle. This group has finished off their payments to the institution ahead of the expected date, but lenders will still receive the remaining monthly payments as expected due to discrepancies between the Kiva’s automatic repayment system and AgroCapital (the microfinance institution)’s system. The warm group told me all about their businesses, and then offered me champagne and one of their chicken-and-rice take-out boxes so that I could join in their celebration. The president Eulogia toasted, “To another great loan cycle, where we all pay on time and our businesses grow more.”

Erika is in her early 20s and sells jewelry and “Essica” brand makeup door-to-door. She used her loan to buy a greater variety of products to sell, which has helped her business a lot since her customers like to see and try on products before they buy them, not just read about them in the catalog. Since Erika works for Essica, she keeps thirty percent of the profits she makes from the makeup sales. She has been doing this for three years, and she has greater profits now than she did before she took out the loan. Erika used her extra profits to put her daughter in a daycare and buy her more of what she needs. Also, Erika is studying computer science in college right now. In Bolivia, colleges are cheap but the costs involved with writing a thesis add up to about 2000 dollars, so she is working and saving up money to write her thesis sometime in the near future. Erika is excited about her studies and says, “You can help people with computer science, and it’s the foundation that helps all the other subjects in the university function better.” Erika has also started taking the free makeup application classes through Essica, taught by Columbian, Venezuelan, and American makeup specialists. She hopes that in the future, her makeup application skills will help her sell more products.

Alejandra sells Essica makeup, clothes, and perfume. She used her loan to buy more products to sell, and now she has more profits than before. She hopes to grow her business more in the future and start selling Chilean clothing. The extra profits have allowed her to provide better for her daughter Angelica, and buy a TV, DVD player, and furniture for her home.

Camparo has sold jewelry (rings, chains, etc) door-to-door for fifteen years, but she just started taking out loans three years ago. She used her loan to buy more gold for her husband to make into jewelry using a machine. Camparo told me that the loan has helped her family a lot, and she has a lot more profits than before. She has three children, and she has used the new profits to pay for their educational needs, bikes, and a TV and DVD player. Her goal is to simply, “Invest more in the business and progress more in life.”

Karina has had a stand where she has sold knit products for four years. With the loan, she was able to increase the quantity of products at her stand a little bit. Before she started her stand, she used to clean homes, but since the pay fluctuated, she started her own business. Now, she is happy that her income only depends on herself and that it is much more reliable. Her income has increased since she started the business, and she has saved much of it in order to keep investing it into her business in the future, since her goal is to open a store. She has two children, and she has been able to provide more for them since her business started growing. Also, she has bought some furniture for her home with the new profits.

Karen has been selling Essica and Natura products for seven or eight years. Before, she did not have a lot of products to sell, but with the loan her business has grown considerably. Now, she receives a lot more free gifts from the company in addition to a higher income. Right now, Karen has two stores that she rents out to other businesswomen, but her dream is to put her own products in those stores when she has enough capital.

Dulia has been with Essica for four years, and has much more profits now after using her loan to buy more products. She has been able to buy a TV and other things that were needed in her home. The profits has also helped her substantially in providing for her son. In the future, she would like to transport clothing and bedclothes from the city of Oruro to sell in addition to her Essica products.

Eulogia is the president of this group, and she has sold construction material for twenty years. She used the loan to buy wood, glue, nails, etc for the business. Eulogia says that the loan has been a great help to her family since it allows her to buy in greater quantities. She has three children, two of which live with her. She hopes that in the future she can buy a truck to help transport wood and open a builder’s yard.

Marisol has a stand where she sells knit children’s jackets. She knits all of her own products, and used the loan to buy more yarn, which has helped her business. The type of wool that she buys depends entirely on what her clients want, and recently she has been buying squirrel wool. She both works by hand and uses a machine. In the future, she would like to grow her business more and open up her own store.

If these entrepreneurs interested you, consider lending to more AgroCapital clients here.