Freedom from Debt and Hope for the Future

Yaquelin Ruiz (46) is a mother of three sons and one daughter. She and her husband Jesus (50) have always worked as hard as they could to support their family. “Since we do not have a career, my husband has always worked for others. Lately we have been trying to have a small business. We started with a tiny cafeteria, selling sandwiches and fruit juice. But we did not know anything about keeping a business and soon we became seriously indebted. I am a housewife, my husband did not have a job, and supporting our household was becoming more and more complicated.”

Yaquelin and her husband are parents of a World Vision sponsored girl. Through World Vision they heard about the different trainings offered at World Vision's vocational training school in Palmera AP and decided to enroll in the entrepreneurship course. In addition to this, Yaquelin took trainings on cooking and bakery, drapery and hairstyling.

At the end of the entrepreneurial training they learned about VisionFund and applied for a small loan of US $220 in order to acquire groceries and start a small convenience store. That is how their journey to economic freedom started. With the skills they gained with the training, “We are capable of organizing the business, saving, planning our expenses and so on. Thanks to this, we have increased our profit in ways we had never dreamed before. This is a new business. We stared this shop almost a year ago. But as you can see, this is a real business and we are doing very well,” says a proud Yaquelin. They paid off that first loan and have a second one, this time they took US $395. “We have used the money to get more merchandise.”

Thanks to the training and the loans, Yaquelin and Christian have paid off all their debt and now their business is thriving. They are able to support their children and they are even able to save some money. Now they have future plans: to build their home and to keep growing their store.