Mirna Haydee Lau Negrete

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Mirna Haydee Lau Negrete by FAPE in Guatemala. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 9 months, FAPE will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Soon after taking out her loan, Mirna realized that her business of selling baked goods wasn’t doing as well as she would have liked and she made a decision to invest her loan in materials to make crafts. She works closely with another inmate and they create custom crafts from felt, cloth, paint, and other materials. She is very happy because the business has been doing very well and in the last 6 weeks she has made over 40 sales to customers both inside and outside the prison. She currently has a backlog of orders and is getting ready to work hard over the next few months with mother’s day and Easter coming up.

Mirna is optimistic that she will soon be able to expand her handicrafts business and hopes to be able to offer work to other women within the prison. She is currently on track to pay off her loan as scheduled and has begun saving a little bit as well, something that was always very hard for her to do. Mirna still dreams of owning a panadería (bakery) and has set a goal to save enough money in the next few years to serve as capital for her bakery when she is released. Mirna is optimistic and proud of her work and says that she loves the creativity that working with crafts has allowed her to develop – and it’s clear that her customers love it too!

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Mirna invirtió su préstamo en comprar materiales para hacer manualidades, tuvo problemas para invertir el dinero del préstamo en el negocio de panadería. Ella esta muy contenta porque le ha ido muy bien en su negocio, y esta trabajando junto con una compañera de la cárcel, piensa que puede ampliar su negocio de manualidades y podría dar trabajo a otras señoras internas en la cárcel. Todos los productos que hace se venden, y además las personas que visitan la cárcel le encargan más productos. Ella quiere ahorrar dinero para que cuando salga de la cárcel tenga un capital que le ayude a seguir con sus negocios. Sigue con su sueño de poner una panadería. El día que la visitamos nos mostró muy orgullosa los productos que elabora.

Dear Kiva Lender,

You made a loan to a Kiva borrower in Guatemala that was posted by one of Kiva’s local field partners, FAPE (Fundación Para la Pequeña Empresa). This message is to update you on the impact that Kiva funds Kiva funds have made through FAPE and to let you know how you can continue to support FAPE’s work to provide financial services to the underserved and to alleviate poverty - one loan at a time.

Over the past three months, I have been working with FAPE in Guatemala City, and I have had the opportunity to get to know the incredibly hard-working staff and clients that make this foundation what it is. FAPE was founded over 25 years ago and holds a strong social mission to help improve the lives of Guatemalans living in a state of poverty in both urban and rural areas.

The core of FAPE’s lending structure is in providing small group loans; however, with the support of Kiva and lenders like you, they have begun offering slightly larger individual loans to borrowers with proven track records. The partnership with Kiva has allowed FAPE to support their clients in this new way and has in turn provided their clients with access to larger loans. Over the past year and a half of working with Kiva, FAPE has lent $150,000 to over 147 borrowers and has served to expand businesses and to improve the quality of life of many clients.

In addition to offering small business loans, FAPE also works with a number of pilot projects in an attempt to continue providing support and education to the communities they serve. A few of these projects include providing in-depth business training to clients, health care facilitation, and an extremely interesting project in the Santa Teresa Women’s Prison, located in Guatemala City.

FAPE was one of the only organizations to respond to the Guatemalan government’s request for rehabilitation programs in the prisons. Over the past two years, they have conducted a series of small business training seminars for the female prisoners and have disbursed about eight small loans – four of which were funded by Kiva lenders. I had the opportunity to visit Santa Teresa Prison twice during my time in Guatemala and spoke with several of the women, and I was overwhelmed by their commitment, responsibility, and true desire to learn.

One of the most dedicated women of the group is Mirna Lau. Mirna has a bubbly personality, an infectious smile, and a truly entrepreneurial spirit. Near the end of 2008, she took out a loan of $625 for a bread and pastry business that she planned to start. Much of the food consumed at Santa Teresa is brought in by the families and friends of prisoners and then sold to other inmates. Soon after receiving her loan, Mirna’s business plans fell apart. Rather than dwell on her misfortune, and knowing that she had monthly payments to make, Mirna taught herself how to make crafts out of felt and within months had built up a profitable business. In February and March of this year, she sold over 60 items and continues to have a waiting list for custom orders. She has had to start hiring other women to help her in order to meet the demand. When I spoke with Mirna, she was incredibly grateful to FAPE and to the Kiva investors who believe in her and who have given her an opportunity that she otherwise would never have had.

Mirna’s story exemplifies the true spirit and objectives of FAPE. The foundation isn’t just about issuing loans. It’s about creating a supportive and long-lasting relationship with the clients and about providing opportunity where oftentimes there is none.

From Kiva, FAPE and all the hard working borrowers here in Guatemala, we thank you for your continued support.

Submitted by Andrea Bouch, Kiva Fellow with FAPE

Due to an error in reporting, Mirna was mistakenly marked as having paid back her loan in full, when in actuality, she is a little tardy on her payments. Last December you helped Mirna get a loan in a program that supports incarcerated women to start a business. As the previous journal update said, she used her loan to invest in materials to make crafts and dolls to sell because the bread business was not going so well. For the first few months, everything was working out well: there were training sessions for Mirna, and she was able to sell her products within the jail, as well as outside with the help of some publicity.

In August, however, she was moved to a different correctional facility, which is a nicer space than her other one. The only problem being was that after having moved, she had problems establishing her business once again in the face of competitors who have been her new location for 15 years. She thinks she will able to start making payments again, although at a smaller amount than what was originally planned for. She said that she believes in the kindness of the people who helped her with the loan, because they believed in her.