Update on our loan to Silvia Verónica de Montano in El Salvador

Dear Cultural Connections,

This is an update on your loan to Silvia Verónica de Montano in El
Salvador. This journal has a video! Check out
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8ItYZpEP6c

Dear Kiva Lender,

Thank you for supporting an entrepreneur in El Salvador! For the past
several months, I have been working as a Kiva Fellow (see http://www.kiva.org/about/fellows-program)
with Kiva’s Salvadoran field partner, Apoyo Integral. As you may know,
all entrepreneur profiles on Kiva’s website are posted by local Field
Partners (microfinance institutions), which are organizations that lend
to the working poor to help them lift themselves out of poverty. The
role of the Field Partner is to screen each entrepreneur, upload his or
her loan request onto the Kiva website, disburse the loan, and collect
repayments.

I would like to believe that the recent introduction to micro-lending
through organizations such as Apoyo Integral and Kiva has finally opened
doors for poor Salvadorans seeking to finance their businesses, homes,
and families’ future. However, one thing I have slowly learned is
that, in El Salvador at least, micro-finance’s most important
contribution to date may ultimately not be the offering of cash to El
Salvador’s poor but rather the gift of allowing them the dignity to be
held accountable. After a decade of civil war in the 1980s, which
attracted billions of dollars in foreign aid and has left over one
million Salvadoran immigrants (20 percent of El Salvador’s population)
working in the U.S. and sending five billion dollars a year back to
families, many Salvadorans have become accustomed to receiving financial
support. Not until recent years, however, have they been invited into a
formal contract to which they are asked to sign their own names, to give
their own word of honor.



My visits to struggling lenders such as Mercedes (http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=40971&_tpos=1&_tpg=1)
remind me that even remittances and credit do not ensure a thriving
business and rarely cover the risks of not having access to health
insurance. sufficient education, or a secure roof. Despite this, I was
often inspired by stories of success, most memorably when I visited
Lucy’s bakery (http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&action=about&id=63109&_tpos=7&_tpg=1).
As a young single mother, Lucy has expanded her small bakery business
with the support of four small business loans from Apoyo Integral. Now,
with three full-time employees (mom, dad, and her younger sister), a
brand new industrial oven, and thousands invested in professional baking
tools, Lucy and her family are thinking about building a larger bakery
across the street to meet the overwhelming demand for their tasty
treats. Though Lucy’s success tends to be the exception rather than
the rule in El Salvador, her leadership and confidence in her role as an
entrepreneur (especially as a woman in Latin America) gives me hope that
micro-credit can be a source of economic - and cultural - independence
among El Salvador’s poor.



Through my experience working with Apoyo Integral and their partner
organization, the Salvadoran Foundation for Integral Development
(FUSAI), I quickly realized how the organizations focused beyond just
providing credit and charging interest. Both Apoyo Integral and FUSAI
use the savings on credit (graciously provided without interest from
Kiva lenders such as yourself) to pay for technical assistance services
for clients building their own homes, training micro-entrepreneurs and
youth in enterprise strategies, and even teaching a much-needed
accounting class here and there. You, a Kiva lender, are giving them the
financial resources; Apoyo Integral and FUSAI give them confidence; and
the entrepreneurs are individually responsible for making something
happen for their families and for El Salvador.



For a complete list of Apoyo Integral loans currently fundraising, click
here: http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=81&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New+to+Old&_te=mj.
Thank you again for supporting Kiva and micro-entrepreneurs in El
Salvador.



Saludos,



Sam Baker



Kiva Fellow 2009

Additional notes from Kiva:

1. This update was posted from El Salvador by Kiva's Field Partner,
Apoyo Integral. If you appreciate this update, please consider
supporting another entrepreneur listed by this Field Partner. You can
view other fundraising loans of Apoyo Integral here:

http://www.kiva.org/app.php?page=businesses&partner_id=81&status=fundRaising&sortBy=New%2Bto%2BOld&_te=j