The semi-rural area just outside of San Salvador called Las Delicias, or The Delights in English, is a major thoroughfare for thousands of people who live in the various villages and hamlets just beyond the city. The highway that leads you through Delight is framed by broken-down factories, chicken processing plants, dusty tire repair shops and lean-to eateries. Windy paved roads like tributaries lead you away from the highway through rows of low-income housing where factory laborers work 15-hour days and come home to two rooms, occasional running water and a flickering TV.
You would think that life here was anything but delightful. Poverty seems to envelop everything, eating up the means to live through disease and lack of opportunity. But on this highway just past Las Delicias, where we leave the pavement behind and walk through a corridor of vegetation to descend steep steps made of used tires that help prevent erosion and landslides, we find the hamlet of Veracruz. It is here where you find Rosa and are welcomed into a small, cement patio strewn with hanging plants and stream-washed clothes drying in the humid air. It is here where we discover the unexpected reality of hope and delight.
Rosa Alba Sandoval de Granados, a wife and mother, is among the few women who work in agriculture, farming being a typically male profession in El Salvador. She is no stranger from doing what is necessary to feed her 10 children and she dedicates much of her time to cultivating beans and corn on two acres of rented land. Her husband works long hours as a security guard at a local market, a job that is tiring and dangerous but provides some consistent income. Despite their long hours, Rosa is proud that she and her husband have put seven of their children through High School and the three who are in elementary school are well on their way to graduation. This is an accomplishment indeed, as most in rural El Salvador do not go beyond a sixth-grade education.
When they are not studying, all the children help in the field alongside their mother planting, weeding and harvesting. However, three years ago, Rosa knew that her family needed to expand their farm in order to have the income to cover living expenses and create savings. Despite their hard work and successes, she did not qualify for a loan from any formal financial institutions. Loans for those who straddle the poverty line are seen as too risky and expensive to manage. That was when she turned to CREDATEC, the mirco-lending arm of ENLACE.
ENLACE credit officer, Israel Melendez, talk with Rosa Alba outside of her home.
While she had initial success with her farming and was enjoying the first fruits of a productive season, tropical storm Ida crossed El Salvador and eighty percent of Rosa’s crops were ruined. Her home’s roof was also heavily damaged, setting her back substantially. ENLACE’s credit program worked together with Rosa until she was able to repay her loan and repair her home. The inflexibility of a traditional bank’s loan repayment schedule would have undoubtedly disabled Rosa from repaying, and crippled any possibility of a prosperous future. In November 2009, Rosa took out her second loan for seeds and fertilizer. Through more hard work, she and her family experienced an excellent growing season.
What the future brings is always uncertain–especially for those who live on small daily margins. But the access to financial help that looks to prosper micro-entrepreneurs rather than prey on them, is a delight that Rosa and her family know first-hand.
CLICK HERE to see a photo gallery of Rosa Alba and two other credit success stories.
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