Mujeres De Los Yaguales Group

Twenty-seven year old Gabriela shared that she only reached the sixth grade and then helped her mother doing housework. Then, she got a job in a tortilla shop (tortilleria) when she was eighteen, and then, when she was twenty-two started working in a restaurant as a cook. She married a day laborer when she was seventeen and the couple has an eight year-old daughter who is in the first grade. Three years ago, Gabriela started raising chickens and every two months, butchers and sells the meat by the pound. Every morning she sells delicious regional snack foods in a local school. She requests her first Kiva loan to buy more chickens to raise, and ingredients for her recipes like meat, spices and herbs, vegetables, and fried/baked corn tortillas called “tostadas”. Her goals are to grow her businesses, generate more income, and be able to sustain her family.

Gabriela is a member of the Friendship Bridge Trust Bank “Mujeres de los Yaguales” in the department/state of Baja Verapaz. There are six other women in the group who raise livestock, new clothing, or have convenience stores. Others have the same businesses as Gabriela. As they have little or no formal education, they benefit greatly from monthly interactive educational training, part of the “Microcredit Plus” program. Recent topics have been about business administration and how to be an effective entrepreneur.

Thank you, Kiva lenders! Gabriela and her friends appreciate your support!

In this group: Gabriela Marilu, Maria Luisa , Celestina , Floricelda , Antonieta , Antonia, Josefina