NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

As if it were a sacred ritual, every week Gloria Sánchez meets to talk business with four other Hispanic women who are on their way to entrepreneurship thanks to the system of microloans.

“I never thought that anyone would believe in me and help me get out of the tough situation I was in – I only needed them to believe in me,” Sánchez, a Mexican immigrant, told Efe.

Sánchez, like many who borrow from Grameen, the “village bank,” is a single mom. With five children to feed, the Mexican felt that fate had put her against the wall when she lost her job at a flower shop last year.

“I went to a neighbor to ask her to loan me $50 so I could buy some flowers and sell bouquet arrangements. I was desperate,” Sánchez, 47, said.

Though the neighbor was unable to lend Sánchez the money, she told her about the well-known “bank of the poor.” That was how the Mexican came to the little office that Grameen has in the mainly Hispanic Boyle Heights area of L.A.