Women in Nicaragua cannot access traditional loans without presenting significant assets for collateral and, traditionally, Nicaraguan women do not own such assets. Therefore, it is extremely difficult for them to get seed capital to start their own businesses and supplemental capital to continue to grow them. JustHope’s Microcredit Coordinator explains, “What we want is that women have the resources to live their lives without depending on other people.”

Sonañdo Juntos Ferretería y Tienda

June 2020

In 2010, 30 women in our microcredit program approached us with a new dream – a hardware store in Chacraseca. JustHope funded the building with a $10,000 donation and the store inventory with a $6,000 interest-free loan. All the women signed the note, and Ferretería Soñando Juntos (Dreaming Together Hardware Store) opened, aptly named for representing big dreams for a small but mighty group of women.

Stitching Hope is a women's fabric art and sewing cooperative in Chacraseca, Nicaragua. In 2011, a group of creative women, in partnership with JustHope and the founding partner, Federated Church of Chagrin Falls, Ohio, began developing the enterprise.

With help from SpiritBank and DoubleShot Coffee, this project raised the funds needed to start a microbank in La Flor, a small, coffee-farming community in the mountains of central Nicaragua. Access to the loans made available by this new microbank enable small-scale coffee farmers to prepare their coffee fields for the coming season without having to engage a loan shark (which is often the only option for small farmers).

A group of 270 farmers from the furthest sectors in Chacraseca sent representatives to us with an urgent request to help them buy a new tractor.

At that time their only option for getting their fields ready to plant was to rent a tractor from someone in a nearby community, which is expensive, and they have to wait in a long line, often meaning they can't get their crops planted in time for the short spring growing season.

La Flor means "the flower" and the beauty of the area is true to the name. La Flor is a small community of farming and coffee-picking families, all of whom live on less than $2 per day. Situated at the top of a mountain in Nicaragua’s cloud forest, there is no vehicle access, making life in La Flor a challenge.