Agreement between Emprende Microfinanzas and the Mapuche Chamber of Commerce for the purpose of offering easier access to credit for Mapuches who run successful businesses in Santiago de Chile.
This group of micro- and small businesses includes women producing textiles, craftsmen and women, cocktail services with traditional native flavors, metal/mechanical businesses, car mechanics, restaurant owners, lawyers and doctors. Their common denominator: They are all members of the Mapuche community, which is taking the capital by storm with their successful businesses.
The fifty members of the Mapuche Chamber of Commerce (CCM) represent over 30,000 members of this native people who are engaged in some kind of enterprise in the metropolitan region, and who from December will have easier access to formal funding sources thanks to an agreement signed by their organization with Emprende Microfinanzas.
The chairman of the CCM, Antonio Ñanculef, expressed his satisfaction with the agreement “Ours is a new group. We started out in 2012 to provide services and protect the businesses of my people here in Santiago. The aim was to reinforce the business management of our associates by providing solutions for their requirements and needs. There is no doubt that improved access to funding is one of the primary needs of any small business”.
Pablo Coloma, General Manager of Emprende, said: “We are very keen to open the door to formal productive funding for all micro- and small businesses, and we are extremely proud to do so preferentially for entrepreneurs who belong to native communities. Emprende’s mission is to provide financial services adapted to the needs of the most vulnerable entrepreneurs in the country, in order to further their economic and social development. We are part of the BBVA Microfinance Foundation group, a non-profit organization that provides loans to over 1.4 million entrepreneurs in Latin America. We therefore believe that offering advantageous credit terms to entrepreneurs from the Mapuche community is part of what we are all about”.