Teodora

Loan description:

Teodora Iwayan is a 58 year old married woman with 5 children aged 21, 20, 18, 16 and 10. Three of them are already working while two are still studying. Her husband Juan passed away at the age of 60. Teodora is now the only one who supports the needs of the family. She is currently engaged in vending seafood products in the public market of Sambagon, a neighbourhood of Pinamungajan in Cebu province. She is provided with a small stall made from tiles where she places all her fresh products and hanging scales so she can measure the volume of her sales by the kilogram. Most of the time she sells large kinds of newly caught fish and freshly harvested seaweed which she offers at a low cost to customers. Teodora also uses plastic basket containers which customers can place their chosen products in before she puts them on the scales. Teodora has run her stable business for the past 15 years and has acquired a number of regular buyers who order fish and other seafood products either on a daily or a weekly basis and especially on special occasions. Teodora has been an active member of the microfinance organisation, Lamac Multi-Purpose Cooperative for 14 years - it has been a source of wonderful opportunities through the loans it has provided to her. She has completed 11 cycles of microloans that have helped her to improve her business. The loan she is now requesting is for the purpose of acquiring additional stocks of fish and seaweed as well as new scales for her everyday vending activities at the public market. She plans to use her earnings for the studies of her two children and for her daily costs. Teodora looks forward to having a larger fish stall someday. She intends to repay the loan over a short period of three months.