Micro Lending: Story 2

NOW, I WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH YOU the story of how a person, who since his early childhood, had to work to be able to feed himself and his family. He comes from a very poor family and has been working most of his life. His name is Pedro Raúl Ly Delgado. He is 39 years old and presently lives in H-13 Antenor Orrego neighborhood here in Chimbote. He is married and his wife's name is Doris Chávez Alvarado. They both have three children: 14-year-old Leslie Ly Chávez, 10-year-old Pedro Ly Chávez and 8-year-old Noe Ly Chávez. Like all parents he has responsability to provide for his family.

His work story begins when he was around 8 years old. From that age he was working accommodating bricks in severals brickworks until he was 14 years old when he started working as an assistant bricklayer for many years. From 21 to 24 years of age he has been working in large brickworks in Nuevo Chimbote city because he has no opportunity to do so in Chimbote. He got married when was 25 but things were not going the way he wanted, economically speaking. So, he started to work on his own.

From 25 to 35 years of age he made bricks only for people who asked him. He did his best to get some money to be able to fulfill his customers' requests but it was needed to get more money to stay in business otherwise business would close down because of lack of materials (cement, coarse sand, etc.) and tools. In this hard situation he heard by some friends and neighbors about Micro Lending program which provides micro loans to entrepreneurs people needing support to begin or improve their businesses.

So, Mr. Pedro headed to the office of the Micro Lending program (which is a program of the non-profit organization CHOI) to know by himself about requeriments to get a micro loan. On August 16, 2005 he received his first micro loan and this way he could buy his materials, tools and pay his debts. Consequently his business started improving litttle by little and so he could hire an assistant. After a while Mr. Pedro requested another micro loan and he received it on September 24, 2007. His third micro loan was accepted and given to him on September 24, 2008.

He received his fourth micro loan on April 06, 2009. Presently Mr. Pedro has rented a place to his business located in L-1 Antenor Orrego neighborhood and he has four assistans working with him making several kinds of bricks. He is very thankful to the Micro Lending program for micro loans he has received since because of this support he can provide for his family.

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