En un poco más de tres años, el desplome del sector de microfinanzas dejó sin cobertura a casi 300 000 clientes de todos los rubros, tamaños y ámbitos de la geografía nacional, y sin ingresos, a un número similar o mayor de personas en todo el país.

“As of December 2017, we attended about 600,000 clients, and now almost 50% less.Stop attending all these businesses represents huge damage for an economy as informal as ours, and the flow of money was decreased, ”said Julio Flores, president of the Microfinance Chamber of Nicaragua (Asomif).

The economic recession that began in April 2018, when government repression murdered more than 300 people and suddenof jobs.

But not everyone failed or limited themselves to subsist.

In the midst of that sea of lost hope, there are also stories of microentrepreneurs who were luckythat are still standing, despite the economic and social crisis that close to them everywhere.

This is the testimony of five small businesses that survive and progress with the credit of microfinance companies.

Living from plants

Sofía Guerrero, from Catarina, is a 57 -year -old woman who has more than half a century of selling plants, as she began to help in the family business since she was six years old.Five decades doing the same, allowed him to move from a time when he got up at 1 in the morning to travel by bus to Chinandega with a basket full of plants, to have a truck, a little truck, and more than half a dozen houses: his, the ones he built for each of his five children, plus the ones he rents.

The key to making that economic leap is the microcredit, which he accessed about 20 years ago, when he began working with farm, and then promising, fame, and alternative, until he reached FDL.

“Loans have helped me a lot to prosper, because I managed to manage money: half, for improvements, the other half, in business.We buy and sow plants, although I also buy furniture in my brother's workshop, and in other workshops, ”he said.

Despite living in a place as picturesque as Catarina, Mrs. Sofia does not have its own stretch to exhibit and sell its products, because anyway, she does not depend on national and foreign tourists who arrive in thousands to that place.His thing is to load the little truck he bought several years ago for $ 8500, gathering the $ 6000 of a loan that a brother of his obtained in Ficohsa, with the 2500 that she had been able to save.

Although he does not deny the effects of the economic recession, and the Covid-19 Pandemia, Sofia has not stopped going to the departments to sell, remembering that in 2018 it was “to Laguna de Perlas, to Kukra Hill, where I made a saleVery big, and I managed to pay my fertilizers, because I take great care of my credits ”.

He says that, even with the pandemic, he has gone to sell to Ciudad Rama, New Guinea, Ocotal, Jalapa."The people who like plants buy you again and again", in addition that their price is not very high: 80 to 100 córdobas, he explained.

What has dropped is the sale of furniture, because many of those who buy them are receptors of remittances or retirees.Even so, she has customers to whom furniture gives in their homes, although the purchase orders are made relatives of those customers living in the United States, Panama or Spain, from where they make payments via Remesa.

The spare parts grow in the middle of the crisis

Hansell Maltez, in Managu.

"I started in this six years ago.Before, I worked in Masese, selling spare parts in the north and center of the country.Then, I was a routero seller with a truck throughout Nicaragua.One day, returning from Granada, they kidnapped me and released me in a channel in Ticuantepe, so I was afraid of the route, and in those days, I read of similar assaults on other routes, ”he details.

Suddenly, he noticed that he knew the suppliers, and already knew what people were looking for, so he decided to try on his own.He sold his Honda Civic in $ 3000, and gathered the money with another 2000 dollars that his mother obtained on loan, to start collecting orders, buying the spare parts, packing them and sending them as parcels through the interurban transport buses, untilIt happened to put a point in Managua to sell in detail.

Searched and rented a small place.Then, he decided to rent a bigger one, which cost much more, “and that was the boom.I started selling spare parts, and I put the motorcycle workshop, which increases the sale of spare parts, ”he confirms.

In parallel, it was named in the world of microfinance.If at the beginning, it was his mother who took the credits for him, "because they did not know me", the legalization of his business allowed him to access his first credit for $ 1500, which he invested and paid in six months.

Then he obtained another 3000 he paid in 12 months.Then, one of $ 5000, "but with a guarantor", until Fundeser considered that he could give him $ 10,000, which he used for inventory, striving to pay them before the given term.

With the crisis of 2018, he saw how the streets closed, and felt fear of the possibility of looting his business, but he never had to close, while seeing that others failed, because they did not even have to pay the rent.

The pandemia declared in 2020 did not make a dent, to the point that “I could open another place, because more customers arrived and I had to hire more workers: if I had a mechanic before, now I have six,” he declared.

Looking ahead to this year, he says that “my wife and I, my friends and family, ask ourselves what can happen in this election year, because we try to be cautious.I planned to open a business to import my own spare parts, but we will wait better ”.

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A businesswoman, selling coal

16 years ago, Azalia García was a Free Zone worker, with a six -month -old son, who did not want to leave other people care.Today, she is a businesswoman who sells firewood and coal in Masaya, who takes care of motorcycles and bicycles, and rents a winery to a friend.

When she decided to undertake, she spoke with her husband, who was financed with Procredit, but they told her that they could not offer less than $ 3000, and she wanted about 17,000 to 20,000 córdobas (around $ 1000 to $ 1200 in 2006).After a couple of years, he changed company.

“I went to FDL with my credit record, and they did not hesitate to open the doors, putting the loan in my name, not my husband.Only the first year they asked me for a guarantor.After that, no longer.I take care of my credit record, and have never claimed me for anything, ”he says.

Not even in 2018 breached its credit obligations.Remember that the tranques were going to pay, while others asked restructuring and deadlines.

Thanks to that culture of payment, but also to an entrepreneurial spirit, Azalia remains firm.During 2018 “sales got off, but people always came to buy.I sold basic grains, vegetables, cheese, cream, eggs (wholesale and minor), and I have a parking lot for about 100 daily motorcycles, more bicycles.When the market closes, I keep attending, ”he says.

That allowed him to finish paying his loan in 2020, and get another in March 2021, for $ 4100, to run coal (100 bags full of coal cost 16,000 cordobas, and the price can rise to 22,000), and firewood, and to make improvements in the house, that "it was a table, it was falling".

It is now built with stonecutter and perlines.He has gates, Tapia, and built a warehouse that rents a friend.“People believe that coal does not generate, but with this I have kept my children, who already took technical titles;I have a 50 -inch TV, and the male asked me for a motorcycle.I have never taken an apparatus to any commercial house, ”.

"There are good and bad days.When they are good, savings.When they are bad, adjustment for food and invest the rest, but right now we are suspended for the elections, because this is going to be ugly.They are saying that the banks are going to expire, but it expires the one who does not have their good mind, ”he concludes in reference to those who misuse the loans.

Selling shoes in Costa Rica

Hollman Torrez got into the family business of the shoe store in 1984 "For responsibility".Almost four decades later, he owns his own workshop, and his shoes have sold in Costa Rica and Panama.

At the beginning of the 90s, he released his first credit with a spark, which had solidarity groups of five people.Over time, the promoters offered financing for him alone, after checking his ability to pay, and inspecting his workshops.

At the beginning of this century, he began working with FDL, using loans to improve his home, build a formal workshop, buy equipment, hords, engines, and hire twelve workers at a certain time.Until 2018 arrived.And 2020.

“Pandemia is the heaviest that has happened to me since I have this workshop.That, plus the situation in the country, has many throwing the towel.I have been able to continue, because I have a solid situation, and an established market that already knows me, but if this continues, who knows if we finish the year, ”he warns.

His problem is aggravated because "the price of the raw material was shot, and the people of market stores do not accept higher prices".

While on the one hand prices increase, on the other sales fall.Torrez says that he had a client that bought 100 pairs of shoes and paid them immediateor smoothies, because you are only winning to eat, and pay the day -to -day expenses.

"I try to convince them so that they do not demoralize and do not pull the towel," he says remembering that, of those 100 pairs of shoes, now he only receives 20 pairs, and credit.

“I have told my clients: if we survive the pandemic, next year we are going to replace ourselves, because those who have money have it retained, waiting for the elections to pass.The same always happens, and this year will be worse for pandemic.I think the one that is stronger will survive, and have the most market and capital, even if it is from microfinance, ”he said.

A gap in tisma

Having studied until the third year of business administration, and having access to credit, allowed Marryuri Gutiérrez.

"In 2006, I started working with small credits that gave us in Usura Zero, but I stopped using them because the deadlines were very short, and then cut them without prior notice," so he submitted a request on FDL, where they gave him 20000 cordobas on loans that was renewing, until the confidence generated allowed him to obtain $ 5000 to buy merchandise for the store, and bales of used clothing.

Until 2018 arrived, and he found that “we couldn't leave.I couldn't go to Masaya to buy ".Nor to pay, so that he began traveling to Tipitapa, to pay at the local branch, thanking that "FDL did not charge us to mour, because he understood that it is not that we did not want to pay, but we could not".

Traveling in the company of her husband, she took the opportunity to buy merchandise and food to resell, because “it is useless to have the money, and not have products.There was a lady who had a half of us, but I had the question of whether to leave that to feed the family, or keep the business and pay the quotas, ”he recalls.

From the beginning of the Covid pandemic, “people are afraid, they are out of work, and those who sow are losing, because there are no prices for their products, but they must pay their loans, because the banks are not going to forgive their debts, or to wait for them, so they run the risk of losing their homes, ”he said.

Your business remains "with how little we manage to sell.I sell and reinvest my income ”, but also thanks to what he learned at the University, which allows him to“ elaborate balance sheets, states of results, know how to handle the existence of products, and how to promote them before customers ”.

Remember that, while working with the loan money he had in force at the end of last year, in December 2020 he was informed that he could get an express loan, to invest in the Christmas season, so he took out 2000 dollars, which he used to buy gunpowder, and paid it within the established period, which was one month.

Now, just expect the electoral process to be calm, and that there is no more maquilas closure.

His hope regarding voting is “that people do not go out to protest, because if this decomposes, we will no longer be the second poorest country in Latin America: we will be the first.This is worrisome, it is desperate, ”he exclaims while praying that there is no more unemployment, especially in free zones that“ generate more than half of the employment.If you close them, this will be worse ".