You may or may not have noticed this space hasn’t been updated in awhile. I’ll be perfectly up front with you: this unemployment and job search thing is time and energy consuming! Granted, I didn’t take a ton of “funemployment” time as Ramit puts it. So, the blog has been neglected, and my weekly posting schedule has gone to…well…now.

Choro Music Project

The Choro Music Project continues to be busy behind the scenes, however, and the rest of the month promises to close out with a bang. My trio Choro da Alegria will be playing the last two Saturdays in April, starting with the 4th Annual Dia do Choro PDX Brazilian Music Festival.

Who You’ve Helped in April So Far

Ashot in Armenia

Ashot is a thirty-four-year-old entrepreneur from Yereavan. He owns a shop, where he makes doors, awnings and other wooden things. Ashot started his business in 2009, and due to the quality of his work has a large number of clients. Now Ashot has many orders to complete, for which he needs to purchase necessary equipment and wood. This will help Ashot to finish the orders with quality and on time. Ashot will increase his working capital, which is vital for him to have sufficient means and invest in further expansion of the business.

Stephanie in Costa Rica

During 2011 Stephanie was able to use her previous loan investing in working capital purchasing materials and others. However, toward the end of that year her husband suffered a foot injury which kept him disabled for two months in which Stephanie had to take over paying rent on their house and taking on other expenses too because her husband was only earning 50% of his usual salary.

Because of this, Stephanie is asking for a new loan to buy raw materials to make decorations out of foam to sell to schools and teachers who use them to mark special occasions (national feast days like independence, the annexation of Guanacaste and others). Stephanie is currently taking courses to learn other techniques to make other types of products her customers request since as she herself says, her customers like her items because of the nice way they are finished. She combines this activity with selling merchandise thus developing other abilities she has and making herself known in other places.

Photos and borrower descriptions courtesy of Kiva.

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