Isabel Invests in Her Daughters’ Future
Isabel is a 42-year-old business woman living in the community of Cacao on Honduras’ northern coast. She has five children — 9, 14, 16, 18, and 22 years old — and though she is married she admits that she has had to provide for her family on her own. For much of her life, she did what she could to squeeze out a little income, such as doing others’ laundry and selling used clothes. Then, two years ago, she took out a $93 Solidarity Group Loan, which enabled her to set up a small shop outside of the neighborhood kindergarten, where she sells snacks to children throughout the day. Kids always seem to be hungry, so the business has done well, and Isabel is now able to sustain it without taking out additional loans.
She has another great need, which is to see her children have better opportunities than she has had. She currently has an $85 Education Loan, which enables her to afford the fees, uniforms, and supplies necessary for her two teenaged daughters to attend high school.
Would her daughters be able to attend high school without this financial support? “I think I’d find a way to put them in school, but it would be more difficult. These loans help you to get started and then to figure out how to keep going.”
Isabel herself only completed first grade. She remarks, “It’s really the only thing a parent can give to her children: that they be educated, that they become someone better in the future. It’s so hard when a person hasn’t studied. I don’t want my children to follow the same path. I fight for them with the hope that they move adelante.”
