I just made four more loans for $25 each raising the total number of loans to 39. These are the loans that I made:

Marta Garcia



Marta García lives in the city of El Alto. She is from a family with few economic resources. At 16 years old, she was working as a street vendor selling used tools in the city market. This was not a very profitable business and she had to walk long distances in order to sell and support her family.

Now Marta is the mother of two children, is married, and is the owner of a shop selling nuts and bolts in the July 16 Market. Among her immediate goals are expanding and remodeling the physical space of her business, in order to expand into other markets with the goal of improving her family’s standard of living.

Sergio Gerardo Noh Coronado



Sergio is an entrepreneurial person and is very responsible. He used to work in a hardware store, but he lost that job three years ago due to problems in the business. Sergio began his own business. When Sergio was let go by the hardware store, they offered part of his severance pay in cash and the other part in hardware materials. This helped him out in the beginning with his paint store, where he sells items necessary for construction and other hardware. Sergio is married and the desire to be able to offer the best to his family is what motivates him to work harder and harder everyday.

Sergio is requesting a loan of $475.00, which he will use to buy merchandise. He is committed to returning the loan in 5 months. Be part of the development of this business! Sergio and his family thank you for the opportunity you provide them to improve their quality of life.

Mohamed Jalloh



Mohamed Jalloh is forty-nine years of age and married with five children. Jalloh runs a small store selling onions, tomato paste and cooking oil in Kabala in Sierra Leone. Jalloh is requesting a second loan of $200 from SMT to increase his inventory so he will be able to earn more income from his little store. He wants to be able to provide more towards the education of his children and the up-keep on his house.

Sajoh Jalloh



Sajoh Jalloh is thirty-three years old and married with one child. He opened a small store in the open-air market in Kabala town of Sierra Leone soon after the end of the civil war. In spite of the small scale of his business, Jalloh managed to save some of his profit to increase his inventory. He used a previous loan from SMT to construct a wooden shelter in a residential area in Kabala where he sells his goods. Jalloh completed his first loan repayment successfully and is requesting a second loan of $200 to further expand his inventory.

Lots of loans to catch up on:

Nov Sarim



Mrs Nov Sarim is a 40 year old widow and mother of 4 children, and lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In order to supplement the entire family's expense, she runs a small grocery store on a roadside of her village, which makes on average about $3.50/day in revenue. Three of her children are students, but the rest are too young to attend school. To increase the size of her business and keep investing in her children's education, Nov Sarim is asking for $800 to purchase more grocery items to satisfy her clients' needs. In the future, Sarim hopes to have enough money to maximize her store with a great variety of products.

Lidia Rufina Montoya



My name is Lidia Montoya and I have dedicated myself to selling new clothes for women, men and children such as t-shirts, button down shirts, blouses, pants, jeans, shorts, caps, socks and shoes. I have been involved in this activity for the last four years, with very good clients and I am able to sell my products in different private and state offices. At this moment I need more inventory in order to offer a better variety of products that are selling well. With the profits I will be able to cover the costs of expenditures as well as have a bit of money to remodel my home in the future.

Irina Lavrinova



Irina is married with two children – her daughter is 13 and her son is only a year and a half old. She and her husband have run a vinyl window installation services business for six years. She gets about 50 orders a month. Every order can require up to 10 window installations. Currently, Irina and her husband make about $2,000 – 2,500 in net profit a month. Irina’s business is constantly growing. One of the advantages she has in the competitive windows market is her direct connection to vinyl window manufacturing companies. Her little office is very popular in the small town of Izyum. Irina can hardly handle the high demand she’s facing now. Irina realizes that lending services are very helpful to her business. Loans allow her to increase her turnover capital and expand her business. She would like to help more people make their homes comfortable and cozy , so she is requesting a loan for $500 to hire two more work crews who would help install vinyl windows and blinds. She believes this will not only help her business grow, but will also provide jobs for many unemployed people in her little town. Irina is hoping to use generated profit to buy a more spacious house for her family and improve their living standards.

Saida Mohamed



Saida runs a soft drink business in a busy area near the Mbagala bus stand. She usually opens the shop at half past six in the morning to sell tea to people before they go to their working places. Saida also sells cold drinks like Coca-Cola, Fanta and Sprite. Cold drinks have higher turnover in her kiosk, mainly caused by the hot weather of Dar es Salaam. Saida plans to add a stock of these items. She also want to add sitting chairs and a table in order to accommodate more people, especially during peak hours. She is in need of US $750 to implement her plans.

Jeffrey Lemuel



Jeffery Lemuel has built a very successful business selling and repairing air conditioners and refrigerators. Eager to continue expanding his company, this thirty-two-year-old entrepreneur has come to us for a loan to make his dream possible.

Julie Otote



Julie Otote sells beverages and bags of pure drinking water to her customers. She is 37 years old, married and has three children. She has applied for a loan which she would like to use to buy additional drinks and water to sell from her shop.

Peter Osarobo



Peter Osarobo is a warm and faithful 33-year-old father who lives in Benin City, which is located in the Nigerian state of Edo. His company sells building materials, and he plans to use the loan to buy more items to sell to his customers and to expand his business.

Justino Guaranda



Justino started his business using some capital saved up from his old job. He sells fish, shrimp, and appetizers typical of the province of Manabí, on the Pacific coast. He learned this trade from his parents. His wife, his mother, and his oldest son help him run the business. He has kept up his clientele thanks to the high quality of his merchandise. Justino would use the loan to buy shellfish, a new table, a scale, and a tent marquee so that he can adapt his business to meet client needs.

Wow...time has flown by while working on other projects and I'm way overdue on an update:

I made tha $25 loan to Djikoloum Hubert



Djikoloum Hubert is a 22-year-old artist. While continuing his studies, he does some painting jobs ordered by customers. Now he is intending to open a workshop that will allow him to have good working conditions. He wants to set up his workshop so that it can also serve as a barbershop. With this goal in mind, he is asking for a loan of $575. He believes that this will allow him to pay for his advanced studies.

Unfortnately, there were issues with it and I received the following letter saying my loan had been returned:

Thank you for your loan to Djikoloum!

As part of Kiva’s due diligence process, we assess a microfinance institution before they join Kiva and then on an ongoing basis as they work with Kiva. We are excited to work with partners across the world that are committed to serving the poor.

ACODE, Kiva’s partner organization in Chad, works in a particularly difficult region. Chad is a country dealing with a massive refugee crisis from Sudan, ongoing conflicts with rebels, and a government with mixed relations with the international community. While we are committed to working in difficult areas, we also work with a sense of heightened diligence in ensuring that Kiva funds reach the intended recipient.

After much consideration, we have decided not to wire the funds to ACODE and to re-fund all of their loans to lenders. Because of difficulties with wiring funds, Kiva was never able to disburse the funds to ACODE. While this loan may have been marked as disbursed and/or partially repaid, this was because ACODE used Kiva’s automatic options that mark disbursements and repayments for the organization (the organization is responsible, then, for marking exceptions).

We apologize for this inconvenience and appreciate your patience. We hope that you decide to re-loan these funds to another business but you may also withdraw the funds or donate them to Kiva.

That money has been placed back in my account, so I will have to make a few more loans once I get everything updated...