Farmer Elena

The air gets flooded with the milled maize leaves while Elena’s figure appears closer and closer. She had been milling the food for all the animals in her farm: bulls, chickens, sheep and turkeys. “I started growing sheep with my grandpa. It was a way to save some money.” Then, she got married and she had the idea to start growing bulls to sell the beef to butchers in the municipality.

Different animals kept coming to fill the large green yard, the same yard where her husband and son planted a plum tree from World Vision 15 years ago. In that time, Magdalena, the youngest of Elena’s kids was sponsored by World Vision. Every year she received school supplies for the girl and that particular time they also received the tree and training to give maintenance to the family garden. “I never forget the name ‘Vision Mundial’, they helped me in that time”.

With seven kids, it was not easy to handle all the expenses and Elena decided to learn how to make fruit preserves, taking advantage of the plums that were growing in her own yard. Soon, Elena added peach, fig and pear trees to make other flavors as well.

Thirteen years ago, Elena got to know about VisionFund’s loans which she started to use to buy more animals and maize to sow in her land. The SGB loan she received one year ago, also helped her to buy more animals at once and to get a better price. Today, she has three bulls, 5 turkeys, 20 chickens and 42 sheep.

Elena would love to see her farm with even more animals. Knowing that one day she will not have all the energy to take care of the bulls, particularly, she is thinking of opening a tiny store while two of her sons take care of the main business.