Whilst I love to hear startup success stories closer to home – I find it equally inspiring and heart-warming to hear stories of entrepreneurs creating enterprises that support families and quite literally change the life of the entrepreneur and the lives of their family for the better.
Today I wanted to highlight one success story which touched me.
Meet Esterlita, a 58 year old lady from the village of Malibangcao, Ozamiz City in the Philippines. At an age when many of us in this country might be thinking about slowing down or retiring even, Esterlita is busier than ever – with good reason, she has seven school-aged children to support.
Esterlita received a loan of $125 from Kiva to get her agricultural business, growing and selling coconuts and bananas, off the ground. Had she not been able to access a startup loan like this then Esterlita would not have been able to expand the business in the way she has which would have had an impact on her ability to support her family, Esterlita expanded her venture by planting and growing more coconuts and
bananas than ever before. By increasing her volumes, she now earns around 5,000PHP or approximately $115 per month which has allowed her to pay off her startup loan and more importantly she is now able to support herself and has dramatically improved the standard of living for her family.
If you want to find out more about Esterlita, you can see visit her page on Kiva.
I personally think it is fantastic to see a woman entrepreneur creating a profitable enterprise to lift themselves out of poverty. Really inspiring stuff I’m sure you’ll agree.
A guest post by Liz Goldman for Wonga.com – the UK short term loans provider and one of
the biggest corporate supporters of Kiva.
StartupCafe 
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