Borrower Profile: Santiago Zamora and Rosa Martinez

Santiago Zamora and Rosa Martinez are first and sixth-grade teachers in Quilalí, a town nestled in Nicaragua’s mountainous region near the Honduran border. Nicaraguan schoolteachers are the lowest paid in Central America and given Quilali’s remoteness, its teachers are often some of the lowest paid in the country. Earning just over $115 monthly apiece, the couple has learned to be frugal with their earnings so that they can afford to send their five children, ranging in age from 10 to 17, to school.

Santiago and Rosa have been members of a NICA Fund partner agency, the April 20th Cooperative, for six and eight years respectively. They appreciate the knowledge and understanding that the April 20th Cooperative staff has shown regarding the financial hardships suffered by its members. The Zamora-Martinez household has primarily used microcredit loans to improve the living conditions of their modest home. Their first home-improvement loan was to replace their dirt floor with one made of tiles. In the future, they hope to receive a loan to allow them to obtain a sturdier roof.

The April 20th Cooperative was the first organization to provide microcredit services in Quilalí. The remote location and lack of paved roads to the nearest urban center, Ocotal, have made the savings and loan services offered by the Cooperative vital to the local economy. While other microcredit providers have since arrived, Santiago and Rosa prefer to borrow from the April 20th Cooperative because, “We like the philosophy of the cooperative. It’s more democratic.”