Borrower Profile: Maria Yvette Moreno de Muñoz

Maria Yvette Moreno de Muñoz, working at her sewing machine. Photo by Mark Aumann.

In a confident yet modest voice, Maria Moreno describes her sewing business with pride. Her primary business comes from sewing uniforms out of her home. When she started her business ten years ago, Maria opened a new chapter in her life. For years, she and her family had lived in a small one-room makeshift home built of metal sheeting. Then, Hurricane Mitch struck Nicaragua. WCCN microfinance partner León 2000 reached out to Maria’s family in their time of need. With the sight of her daughter standing in water up to her knees still fresh in her memory, Maria tears up when recalling her decision to take out her first loan.

A $28 loan and her manually operated sewing machine gave Maria the first glimpse of the path out of extreme poverty. “My sewing machine is my machete,” she says. Maria was also able to expand her one-room shack into a multi-room home that gives her family more privacy.

At times, Maria and her husband take out joint loans. These help her expand her inventory and upgrade her equipment, while allowing her husband to buy cattle, which provide milk and income for the family. Now that she and her husband are able to provide for the family, she would like to put a floor in her house and build a sewing workshop to offer jobs to her community.

Maria says she hopes that her success will allow her three children to continue their educations and pursue professional careers. “I want to leave a legacy that shows them what you can achieve with hard work,” she says.

By Susan Frisbie
Development and Marketing Director