Alberto worked from midnight to 6 p.m. each day in the sugarcane fields, trying to make ends meet for his family of six. After 18 hours’ work, he returned home with $7 or less. His first loan from Esperanza, HOPE’s partner in the Dominican Republic, enabled him to open a small store, but because he sold things on credit, his customers were inconsistent in their payments, and he struggled to earn enough. As he faithfully repaid his loans and accessed larger sums, Alberto was able to buy a motorcycle to use for deliveries. “Before the loans, life was very hard, and now with the loans, it’s not as difficult. Life is better since HOPE has come,” he says. Alberto’s four children are now in school.
![Before Eveness Mulungu joined the Walusungu (“mercy”) savings group through our church partner in Malawi, she faced days where she and her family ate animal feed because they couldn’t afford human food. But that changed when she joined the savings group. Eveness used her first group loan of about $1.70 (U.S.) to start a business selling doughnuts and beans.
“By the end of my first cycle I made $140 (U.S.),” Eveness shared. “My life is no longer the same now; [I] was regarded as no one in the community. ... This was the first time in my life that I ever touched and owned big money like this!”
Pictured: Eveness, with her husband in front of their piggery—a third successful business that she operates.](https://blog.hopeinternational.org/wp-content/plugins/instagram-feed/img/placeholder.png)