ESPERA Archives - Page 4 of 7

Five ESPERA Women at the Encuentro, Five Changed Lives!

Isabel, a Guatemalan woman from Sololá, interviews five women who, like her, participated in the Encuentro that took place in La Palma from January 8-10 to celebrate the 10th anniversary...

ESPERA

It Keeps Me Sane

I am a member of the Ignatian Volunteer Corps and as a part of that organization, I have been blessed to be with Mary’s Pence for three fulfilling years. A...

Auxiliadora at Women's Club of Minneapolis

ESPERA

As Crisis Deepens, Auxiliadora Accompanies Women

Auxiladora didn’t talk much about herself at first. We’d walked up the block to grab coffee and chatted for about an hour about the ESPERA program before she shared details...

ESPERA

In Depth with ESPERA: Different Life Stories, One True Collaboration

In Tonacatepeque, El Salvador, women in a new ESPERA group have come together across social differences: one part is from the local Catholic parish, and the other is a feminist group working on women’s rights.

ESPERA

In Depth with ESPERA: Grupo Emprendedor La Epifanía, Tegucigalpa, Honduras

The seed contribution from Mary’s Pence into Epifanía’s community lending pool was $3,500 in September of 2012. Six and a half years later, the 26 members of Epifanía have distributed 156 loans amongst themselves with a cumulative total of $61,670.

ESPERA

The 2019 Encuentro – We Gathered with Gratitude

If we used just one word to describe the experience, it would have to be gratitude. All throughout the days we spent together, women expressed gratitude for the opportunity to participate in the ESPERA program and the opportunity to meet one another, for the work of Mary’s Pence and the work of our ancestors.

Photograph of several guatemalan woman in traditional dress, one woman from El Salvador, and one woman from the United States.

ESPERA

A Decade of Hope: Celebrating 10 Years of the ESPERA Program

From the beginning, we knew that unlike other micro-lending programs, we wanted to create a feminist model of community lending, which measures success by the effects the program has on women, their communities, their well-being and economic autonomy, not merely profits and repayment rates.

ESPERA

ESPERA: The Reason I Support Mary’s Pence

I had the privilege of attending that first emotional health retreat in La Palma, El Salvador, in 2017 and meet the women who attended from all over Central America. I was so proud of Mary’s Pence as I heard one woman after another thank our organization for its caring accompaniment.

Photograph of all the women of Virignia community, one woman holds a baby.

ESPERA

Visiting ESPERA women in the remote village of Virignia, Guatemala

I applaud Gilda’s work and her commitment to traveling hours upon hours from Mexico to go to the communities that are the most out of the way and forgotten in Guatemala to encourage and work with the women on increasing their economic status.

Salvadoran woman wearing a light blue apron sits on the edge of a hammock. Behind her in the hammock a toddler lays drinking a bottle.

ESPERA

Salvadoran Women’s Will to Thrive

Ambrosia explained what they learned from this experience, “We have definitely learned to be more careful with the time we set for our loans, and at the same time we are grateful to have access to these funds.” The commitment they feel towards the community of women who participate in their local ESPERA community lending pool is very powerful and helps Ambrosia and her daughters not to give up.

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