This is Maria
Maria is 21 years old and single. She lives with her mother and she works in the production of tablecloths, napkins and other embroidered products. She and her mother don’t have their own shop, so they sell their crafts to wholesalers who in turn sell to the Santo Domingo artisan’s market. She also sells special orders to people in the community.
With this loan, she hopes to buy more thread and fabric to increase production and sell in a small shop that is frequented by tourists.
This is called Mutual Aid. Not Colonial Aid. Not Corrupt Government Aid. Not Celebrity Ego Enhancing Aid. Rather, Actual Aid.
And when this loan is repaid. I’ll find another Maria.
The money I loaned Maria was from the profits I made from selling my own embroidery. And that’s about 95% of my profits so far. So hopefully some of you out there with a slightly higher income can lend some money too.
One Trackback
[...] A year ago I took some of the profits earned by selling my recycled clothing crafts and made a Kiva microcredit loan. I figured I should put my money where my mouth is and support someone doing ace crafty stuff and trying to make a money out of it, in another part of the world. Obviously it’s a bit hard for me to cruise down to a market in Mexico, so instead, I made a microcredit loan to a woman called Maria. [...]