Closing cycles and Pass-over

The culminating moment of the project was the pass-over of the groups formed by SOLAC to an established MFI which could expand the provision of services of Village Banking microfinance to more people in the area of Alto Perú, and secure a long-term availability of these services. In July 2010, after having drawn up a list of MFIs in Lima, it resulted only possible to pass-over the groups to an institution already present in the district of Lurigancho-Chosica. Two NGOs were contacted and their programmes were explained to the members of the ASOLs. Each NGO came in October to present themselves to the ASOLs and to clarify any doubts the participants may have. All four ASOLs chose the NGO EDAPROSPO (www.edapr.org.pe), with which two of the four groups, Las Triunfadoras and Karin, have already received their loan disbursement and one, Unidos para el Desarrollo, is in the process of starting a new loan cycle. The fourth group, Sagrado Corazón de Jesús, has decided to postpone the start of their next cycle and remain in contact with the organisation. All the ASOLs finished their cycle with SOLAC with a 100% repayment rate. The participants explained that they decided to work with EDAPROSPO because they felt very comfortable with the coordinator who came to present the organisation, Jonathan Estrada. EDAPROSPO’s microfinance programme, called PROSPERIDAD (“prosperity”), is very focused on providing practical and entrepreneurial workshops, an aspect that resulted very important for the people in Alto Perú. In this new programme, the participants have to get used to a different payment system, where every month the members of the ASOL give their instalment to the treasurer who deposits the money in the organisation’s bank account. Working with a commercial bank is an important new step for a lot of the participants of the project. EDAPROSPO’s aim is to continue expanding the outreach of microfinance within Alto Perú.