Santiago Microloan – Mercy Foundation – Bennett O’Brien

A loan of $350 helped to maintain his coffee plants by purchasing pesticides and fertilizers as well as paying labour costs.

The Mercy Foundation funded a microloan to Santiago, a coffee farmer in Peru.

Santiago's story

Santiago is 38 years old and lives with his wife and their 4 children in their own rustic home located in the Santo Tomás district, in the province of Cutervo in Cajamarca, in Peru's northern sierra region. The local inhabitants of this area typically work in agriculture, animal husbandry and business.

Santiago works in agriculture, in particular he has been growing a coffee variety known as Catimor for the last 3 years. He is quite experienced in this and he has an excellent reputation in his personal and business affairs. He applied for this loan so that he can maintain his cultivation of coffee by paying for pesticides and fertilisers as well as labour costs which will allow him to hire extra workers to assist him in his work.

Santiago hopes that this will enable him to increase his production level and harvest so that he will have more to sell to his customers and, subsequently, increase his income in order to improve his family's standard of living.

In Peru, where Santiago lives and operates his farming business, the average annual income is just $12,000. Due to this, microloans can have a strong positive impact for entrepreneurs like Santiago. This is true even if the microloan is just a few hundred dollars.

Microloan Partner

This product was created to assist Edpyme Alternativa to expand their reach into rural areas of Northern Peru in order to attend more underserved populations. Kiva funding allows the institution to access the Northern areas of the Piura, Lambayeque, and Cajamarca regions, which are generally too costly to serve and therefore less attended by financial institutions.

With the help of Edpyme Alternativa, the Mercy Foundation successfully funded this microloan to Santiago! Now he can purchase the pesticides that he needs, and pay labour costs as well. This can help him to keep progressing his business in the right direction.

Even though this microloan has now been funded, there are still countless entrepreneurs around the world who desperately need access to capital. If you would like to fund a loan to an entrepreneur in need, please feel free to visit Kiva.org today! Even small amounts can go a very long way, and your help will be much appreciated.

Notes

1. This article is based on https://www.kiva.org/lend/827242

Mercy Foundation is on a mission to provide countless entrepreneurs the world over funding for there livelihood. The organization liquidates donations of underutilized real estate assets to fund such financial assistance to hardworking entrepreneurs. This, it believes, is the road to financial independence. For more about the foundation’s work, visit its website.