A World of Small Businesses

Rollover the collage to learn more about some of Kiva's loan recipients. Find out where they are from and how they are using the money.

Kiva: Facts At A Glance Company founded: October 2005 First loan recipient: Elizabeth Omalla, in Uganda; $500 for a fish-mongering business. Participating countries: Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Bulgaria, Palestine, Mexico, Cambodia, Ecuador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Senegal, Samoa, Ghana Number of micro-finance partners: 15 Number of individuals loaning online: 5,717 Loan amount raised online: $522,750 Average amount loaned by each lender: $80 Number of loans dispensed: 963 Average loan repayment record: 100 percent Average loan request per business: $560 Average repayment time: 9 to 12 months Future plans: By the end of 2006, Kiva plans to expand to Moldova, India, Nigeria, Mozambique, plus three additional countries. The expansion will incorporate 9 new partner organizations.

Entrepreneur: Kesilai Karino Nkariapa Business Name: Kesilai Karino Nkariapa Location: Isinya, Kenya Amount Repaid: $0 of $450.00 Kesilai is 45 years old. She is married and has 7 children. She is a trained councilor and she has helped her community to resist and abolish female genital mutilation (FMG) practices. Through various trainings, she has been able to gather a lot of knowledge and she shares it with her group members especially the dangers of this practice and HIV-AIDS. Entrepreneur: Abdon Oyet Business Name: Oyet Abdon's Family Resettlement Location: Banda-Kireka, Uganda Amount Repaid: $172 of $450.00 Abdon Oyet has been an active member of Life in Africa for six months. He currently works at the WE Center as a bracelet maker in the Invisible Children Bracelet Project. He is Acholi and his home used to be Gulu in Northern Uganda. However, in 1997 the war there became so dangerous that he was forced to flee and come to Kampala where he lives in the displaced persons camp known as the Acholi quarters. Entrepreneur: Nancy Njoki Business Name: Nancy Njoki Location: Kangema, Kenya Amount Repaid: $0 of $75.00 Nancy was born 43 years ago. She is married to a good man who supports her initiatives and they have 6 children. Two are in secondary school while the rest are in primary school. She works hard to make sure that her children get good education and the basic necessities of life. She sells milk and Napier grass. Milk sales contribute $28 whereas Napier grass contributes $ 71 per month. With an additional cow, she will have more milk and her income will increase gradually. Entrepreneur: Yesenia Guadamó Business Name: Mariscos Yessi Location: Guayaquil, Ecuador Amount Repaid: $189 of $375.00 Yesenia Guadamó, a 29 year-old single mother originally from Vinces, Ecuador, has lived in Guayaquil for 15 years. Since she and her husband split, she has been responsible for their two children ages 6 and 7. A good friend of Yesenia’s encouraged her to open a fish market, and so she started a small business a few years back. Sra. Guadamaó opens shop at 4:00 am and usually sells out by 1:00 pm. With her revenues from one day, Yesenia will buy fish for the next, but she would like to expand her business. Entrepreneur: Susan Wanjiku Mungai Business Name: Susan Wanjiku Mungai Location: Kiambu, Kenya Amount Repaid: $0 of $150.00 Susan is the secretary of Karura Mwangaza Women Group a post she has held for the last five years. She is married with one.Susan joined with her fellow members joined WEEC in 2004 when they learnt that it trains women who would like to start there own small businesses. She got her first loan of $100 in march 2004 after attending training. The loan enabled her to start a retail shop in Ndenderu in Kiambu District. She installed a community phone in her shop, sells Celtel and Safari-com airtime cards. Entrepreneur: Asuncion Martinez Garcia Business Name: Pulperia Martinez Location: Danli, Honduras Amount Repaid: $126 of $500.00 My name is Asunción and my business is called Martinez’ Grocery Store. It is located near to the school Jose Trinidad Reyes, which helps me sell my products. During the night I sell sweets because there is a lot of traffic in this area and the school has three daily segments of classes. My earnings help me care for my children in their studies and in my familial expenses. Loan Use: Buying batteries, juices, milk, churros ( a type of sweet pastry), cookies, condiments, coffee and other items. Entrepreneur: Gilbert Matsiko Business Name: Secretarial Bureau Location: Kampala, Uganda Amount Repaid: $100 of $450.00 Gilbert Matsiko joined Life in Africa in 2005. He started as a volunteer working with visual images. His hard work and dedication has earned him a full time paid position as Visual Images Manager at the WE Center.Gilbert has a passion for computers and he wishes to pursue a higher education majoring in computer studies. In order to accomplish this goal he has devised a plan to open a business.This will give him the necessary funds to complete his education. Entrepreneur: María Adriana Arzola González Business Name: Novedades Adriana Location: Monterrey, Mexico Amount Repaid: $0 of $200.00 ENGLISH Four years ago Adriana and her husband began their small business in order to provide a better future to their family because they have three children. In the beginning they only sold second hand cloths and notions. Today the business is rapidly growing and is a notions and stationery store with a great variety of items. Their business setting is a great location, in a new zone of the city which has been growing fast lately. Entrepreneur: Sokrorn Kam Business Name: Kam Sokrorn fruits and vegetables Location: Dangkar District, Cambodia Amount Repaid: $168 of $500.00 Kam Sokrorn is a mother of three in Phnom Penh, who is currently selling food in front of the local factories. She is making approximately $7.50 a day from selling food. After seeing her friend successfully open a store, Kam Sokrorn decided that she would like to open a grocery store. Therefore, she is applying for her first loan from CREDIT MFI in order to acquire the inventory for her store. She is requesting $500 to purchase fruits, vegetables, and other products for the store. Entrepreneur: Grace Njoki Kamau Business Name: Grace Njoki Kamau Location: Ongata Rongai, Kenya Amount Repaid: $0 of $300.00 Grace is 40 years old married with 3 children. She is an active member of Christian Women Association in her local church. Her contribution to the community is mainly helping the needy people– i.e. the elderly, the orphans and HIV\AIDS victims. Grace and the other members makes visit the needy and give them food, clothing and do the homestead chores that are at times left unattended to. They do bible study with the needy and encourage them using bible teachings. Entrepreneur: Godfrey Mugeni Business Name: The Lakes Location: Mbale, Uganda Amount Repaid: $0 of $800.00 This business is found in East Africa, Uganda. Its mainly dealing with fish mongering. Godfrey Mugeni is a married man with his family of 8 people. He leaves around lake Kyoga Soroti – Serere landing site and operates his business in Mbale town. He has been a fisher monger all his life, but he has been lacking fishing equipments and he was used by other people to work for them since he did not have his own nets and a boat to use for fishing. Entrepreneur: Nancy Wahito Business Name: Nancy Wahito Location: Kangema, Kenya Amount Repaid: $0 of $150.00 At 64, Nancy believes that she has not yet reached a point in life to give up working. Her 6 children are all independent but she takes care of 2 of her grandsons who give her company. These two grandsons are in primary and she is responsible for all the necessities. She joined WEEC and Kenyanjeru Women’s group 5 years ago and this has helped her in various ways. Entrepreneur: Anny Dorin Castro Business Name: Ropa Anny Location: Comayaguela, Honduras Amount Repaid: $25 of $150.00 My name is Anny and I sell clothes for adults and for children, I have had my business for five years, with which I have been able to care for my two children who are school-aged. I make my sales by commission, I visit offices and neighbors who buy what they need from me, and commission me to sell them other items. Loan Use: Purchase blouses, pants, T-shirts, socks, shorts, for adults and children. Entrepreneur: Luis Alonso Castellanos Business Name: CARPENTERS 'THE GOOD FURNITURE' Location: Danli, Honduras Amount Repaid: $152 of $225.00 I am the owner of a carpentry shop that builds beds, doors, wardrobes, dinning tables, chairs amongst others. I have lots of clients and most of my work is done by order. I get paid 50% when we sign the contract and 50% when I hand them the final product, which makes it harder for me to sell furniture to other clients. This area has lots of demand for the elaboration of furniture and wood therefore I decided to work with PRISMA. Entrepreneur: Geofrey Ochieng Business Name: Piggery Fund Location: Tororo, Uganda Amount Repaid: $200 of $500.00 This description was written by Moses Onyango, who represents Village Enterprise Fund (VEF) and Kiva in Uganda. VEF donated 100$ grant to him in the year 2001. He started it as a small business of selling piglets. His business continued well for a period of seven months as he realized a lot of profits. He then decided to continue with selling of piglets and mature pigs. Here his business got wider market where by the profits in his business have enabled him to open up a piggery. Entrepreneur: Stephen Akena Business Name: Stephen's Seconds Location: Banda-Kireka, Uganda Amount Repaid: $104 of $275.00 Stephen Akena is an active member of Life in Africa. He is a resident of Acholi quarters (a displaced people's camp in the surburb of Kampala). At the camp, his only source of income was the stone quarry where he worked very hard to make barely enough money to exist on. Since coming to Life in Africa, his life has totally changed. He moved to Kampala as a result of the war in Northern Uganda. There he also was forced to live in an IDP camp and conditions were very hard. Entrepreneur: David Ochieng Business Name: Good feeding Location: Mbale, Uganda Amount Repaid: $0 of $700.00 David is basically located at Mbale town, where he is operating butchery business. He’s married with five children and one wife. He is  a man who is committed to his work, has now taken two years in the business. He started this business by selling home items like; Selling millet, sorghum, groundnuts, simsim etc. with a capital of 200,000.= till he got used to a system  of business whereby, now he gets customers and good profit. Entrepreneur: Betty Asio Business Name: Peace Location: Mbale, Uganda Amount Repaid: $50 of $500.00 This business in brief was established early 2005. Betty Asio is married with only two children. She began the business by keeping her own local breed of chicken till when the business began progressing. Whereby, she got some good profit and started buying layers and broolers type of breeds.  Now the business is well established, she gets more customers who come and buy eggs and chicken in large quantity from her and sell in small quantity to the final consumer. Entrepreneur: Adonijo Muthoni Business Name: Adonijo Muthoni Location: Kangema, Kenya Amount Repaid: $0 of $600.00 Adonijo is 49 years old married with 5 children; two are in a technical college while the other one is in High School. She has been in horticulture farming for more than 20 years and has a good customer base of institutions such as schools and local hotels.The loan applied for of $600 is intended to diversify her area of farming to include dairy farming. Her objective is to take advantage of this group of dairy farmers she joined recently because they will be buying animal feeds and drugs as a group. Entrepreneur: Maribel Zuniga Business Name: Maribelâ's Variety Location: Danli, Honduras Amount Repaid: $484 of $500.00 For 5 years my business has sold clothing and shoes for women, men and children, distributing the merchandise door-to-door among my neighbors and friends that prefer to do business with me at the moment because I offer them affordable prices with methods of payment. I also have clients who are teachers and factory workers and I visit some villages around Danli. Maintaining good clients and administration has generated a good income for me, but I need the loan to improve my business. Entrepreneur: Mousa Ibrahim Khalil El Khawagi Business Name: Mousa Telephone Location: Khan Yunis Refugee Camp, Gaza Amount Repaid: $99 of $600.00 Mousa has a family of 12 people. Mousa is one of more than 100,000 Palestinians who have lost their jobs in Israel since the second intifada began in September 2000. When Israeli closure restricted the number of Palestinians allowed to work in Israel, Mousa established his own business repairing telephones and mobile phones. In order to broaden the spectrum of repairs he offers -- and, in turn, increase his income -- Mousa applied for loan capital to purchase more spare parts for telephones. Entrepreneur: Catalina Contreras Reyna Business Name: Catalina Contreras Reyna Location: Monterrey, Mexico Amount Repaid: $0 of $1200.00 ENGLISH Catalina is 48 years old and she was born in Monterrey, N.L. and she sells shoes and jewelry. She works selling her merchandise from house to house, offering credit to her clients and repayments monthly. She has more than 50 clients in her portfolio and she gives to them everything they need regarding school articles and home articles. Catalina has more than 6 years of experience as a business woman; she is married and has 4 sons. She needs a loan of $1,200 to invest in merchandise. Entrepreneur: Fred Tibaijuka Business Name: Tibaijuka Rentals Location: Kampala, Uganda Amount Repaid: $111 of $400.00 Fred Tibaijuka is an active member of Life in Africa. He has proved himself to be a very hard worker as a sander and bracelet maker for the Invisible Children Bracelet project.Fred is a father of four children. It is very expensive raising children and providing them with school fees, food, medical care and housing. He manages but knows that there are ways he could improve their standard of living. When his father died, Fred inherited three, two room houses in Makindye which is a suburb of Kampal. Entrepreneur: Lucy Ene Lantei Oltingidi Business Name: Enkakenya Women Group: Lucy`s Steers Location: Olturoto, Kajiado District, Kenya Amount Repaid: $446 of $900.00 This business is a member of the Enkakenya Women Group. Group lending, also known as solidarity lending, is a mechanism that allows a number of individuals to provide collateral or guarantee a loan through a group repayment pledge. The incentive to repay is based on peer pressure; if one person in the group defaults, the other group members make up the payment amount. - Kiva Staff Entrepreneur: Faith Kaiju Business Name: Faith Salon Location: Soroti, Uganda Amount Repaid: $220 of $500.00 Faith is a widow with three children. She started her business through her meagre funds after getting business training organized by Village Enterprise Fund. Her business has picked up very much because of her quality work on the hair of her customers. Given a loan of $500, she plans to buy electric hair drier, chemicals and hair food oil, hair clips, shampoo, hair dyers and an air fan. Entrepreneur: “Juanita” Juana Cortes XX Business Name: “Juanita” Juana Cortes XX Location: Santa Ma. El Tule, Oaxaca, Mexico Amount Repaid: $0 of $550.00 ENGLISH Doña Juana lives in a small town in Oaxaca state, in the Mexican Southeast. She has three sons, two of them born with cleft lip disease and it was the reason for starting her small business in order to pay their medical treatments (and afford their studies) because they've needed operations since they were little children. Four years ago she started her business, where she offers fruits, vegetables and groceries. Entrepreneur: Cecilia De Leon Llamas Business Name: C.V. de Ropa Nueva y Semi nueva Location: Monterrey, Mexico Amount Repaid: $83 of $250.00 Cecilia was born in San Luis Potosi, but she has lived in Monterrey for 30 years with all her family. She moved to Monterrey looking for new and better oportunities. She started her business by only selling her children's used clothing to her families and friends. Now she is successfully selling used clothing and new clothing (since 1994) and has two stores in diferents markets open only Wednesday and Friday. She is requesting this loan to purchase clothing because the new season is coming. Entrepreneur: Martha Gladys Valerio Martinez Business Name: Dulceria Valerio Location: Danli, Honduras Amount Repaid: $25 of $150.00 I have been working for five years in my small business, which is located in my home and is half a block from the Social Security building of out town. At the moment, I need to expand my business so that my daughter, who is in her final year of high school, can go to university to continue with her studies. The earnings I make help me with family expenses. Loan Use: Purchase bonbons, chiclets, confections, churros, sodas and other items. This page was updated October 31, 2006.