Adding to basket
Twenty-six-year-old Catalina, a mother of a seven-year-old daughter who attends the first grade, is married to a banana farmer. She shares that she only attended school for six years and decided it wasn’t important so she left to work on a farm harvesting coffee.
For six years, she has worked with her husband on their small banana farm. They sell the bananas in local markets. For five years, she has raised chickens that she sells from her home and in the local market. Also, for four years, Catalina has embroidered traditional skirts/”cortes”. She plans to use her first Kiva loan to buy traditional skirts and thread.
Six Maya K’iche women have voted Catalina to be the President of their Friendship Bridge Trust Bank “Paquila”. They all have the same businesses as Catalina. They benefit greatly from participating in the “Microcredit Plus” program of loans, monthly educational training (health, women, family, business) and bi-monthly health care services (exams, consults, family planning). Recent topics for the training have centered around empowerment and wise business administration practices.
They feel fortunate to access health care services as the public health care system in Guatemala is challenging to access and often, non-existent. It is estimated by USAID that “more than six million people in Guatemala, approximately 35 percent of the country's population, lack access to basic health and nutrition services”.
Thank you, Kiva lenders, for lending a helping hand!
In this group: Catarina, Juana , Magdalena, Catalina , Manuela , Maria Elizabeth , Juana Rosalia
