Olga Marina

Olga Marina has a business selling peanuts, coffee, and chocolate in Samayac, Guatemala. Her dream for the future is to provide a good education for her children and to keep expanding her business. She is very ambitious and looks forward to future cycles with Namaste. She is 35 years old and married. She had her first child at age 16, but lost it and now has two children ages 7 and 11, both of whom attend school.

Olga has had a hard life. She has a second-grade education, and when she was ten years old, her mother died. Her father remarried, and the step-mother treated her very badly. She went to the home of neighbors for help. They had a business selling chocolate, coffee, peanuts, and beans, and she worked in their business. At age 14 she went to work for another woman who had a business selling the same products. She learned a lot from this woman, and was inspired to become a successful businesswoman on her own. When she was 18, the woman helped her launch her own business.

She began with Namaste in February 2017, with a loan of $550, and her business adviser recommended she use the money to buy in bulk and to sell in additional markets. Doing this has allowed her to buy peanuts, chocolate and coffee beans at a lower cost. With the large quantities of peanuts she now buys, she can prepare them in different ways, roasted, salted, sweet or with chili flavoring. These preparations are very popular. Olga is an eager learner, and she has implemented 78% of the advice given her. Recently her husband started working with her as well.

With the changes she had made, she has almost doubled her monthly net profit from $380 to $708. She repaid her first loan and has recently begun Cycle Two with a new loan of $950 to continue her path of expansion.