Each year, HOPE celebrates a client who demonstrates HOPE’s values of perseverance, compassion, character, and creativity by announcing the Thurman Award winner. Established in honor of HOPE’s first CEO and his wife, the Thurman Award celebrates clients who have not only experienced change in their own lives but have also extended that transformation to others in their community. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be posting the stories of this year’s honorable mentions and overall winner.
Though she’s small in stature, Dolorosa Santos is a giant in her passion for serving the Lord through business. The owner of a variety of enterprises in bustling Quezon City, the Philippines, Dolorosa dreams of providing employment within her community—and of using her work to share God’s love with others.
Dolorosa owned several businesses by the time she took out her first loan in 2005 from the Center for Community Transformation (CCT), HOPE’s partner. Her sari-sari (convenience) store provided neighbors everything from toiletries to soy sauce, eggs, and shoe polish. Dolorosa also owned a motorcycle and attached sidecar, a common form of transportation known as a tricycle, which she rented to drivers so they could earn an income providing taxi services.
Ever an entrepreneur, Dolorosa used loans from CCT to expand. She bought additional tricycles, growing her fleet to six. Realizing that tricycles were in constant need of repair because of the poor quality of the roads, she began selling spare parts. Dolorosa also noticed that her neighborhood supports several thriving sari-sari stores, creating an opportunity to supply other shops at wholesale prices.
![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)