EDAPROSPO Domitila Julca

Domitila Julca is an extremely hardworking entrepreneur working in Los Olivos, Peru, a suburb of Lima. Her everyday routine is truly remarkable. She wakes up everyday at 2am to drive to downtown Lima. There she buys a truckload of potatoes (costing 15000 to 18000 soles). She sells half to other wholesale buyers in the downtown market at La Victoria. Then she takes the other half to the market pictured above in Los Olivos to sell on her streetside stall. In order to sell IN the market, you have to buy the retail space. Ms. Julca, recognizing that vegetable buyers congregate in the free roadside section outside of the market and that potatoes do not have as high a profit margin as other products, bought two stalls inside the market and rents them out to clothing sellers while she maintains her stall on the street. She continues to sell her various types of potatoes until noon at which point she sells whatever she has left to a group of 18 or so restaurant and small bodega owners who pick them up. Then at 3pm she gets her onion shipment in and sells those until nightfall. She goes home at 9pm and repeats her routine at 2am the next morning. She does this seven days a week.

Ms. Julca has five children, four of whom are in university. Two sons have scholarships and she pays for the university studies of the other two. She is a nutritionist by profession and used to work in a university. Her next business venture is to buy land in Huaraz (a mountain town 8 hours north of Lima) where she will cultivate maca. Maca is a tuber that can be made into a drink (I tried it at another stand and it tastes sort-of like liquid oatmeal with brown sugar) and is very nutritious and an aphrodisiac. Ms. Julca’s drive is extraordinary and if her next business venture is anything like the rest of her life, it is sure to be a resounding success. Thank you for your loan and becoming a part in Ms. Julca’s entrepreneurial endeavors.

One quick note: EDAPROSPO is waiting until the end of the loan to write their journal updates. In this way, they hope to be able to show you a ‘social impact’ of a loan, something that may be hard to assess only a month after receiving the loan. They thank you for your support of their clients.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

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