Doña Amparito, as she is fondly called in her town, is the owner of Embutidos Amparito in the city of Cojutepeque, and she is one of the first users of the Popular Credit Program.

She started preparing sausages thanks to the teachings of her mother. When she married at 14, she had the need to start working on her own and one day she went to Don Pedro Angel, who in 1952 was the Credit Association’s manager, and he granted her the first loan to start a business. “25 colones,” $2.86 in today’s currency. Since the time of that loan, the relationship with the Credit Association has been based on mutual trust, each time involving larger amounts.

She recounts that she started the business selling traditional sausages or chorizos from a basket since 4:00 a.m., at the side of the Pan American Highway, which was the time of day that traffic from the buses that arrived from Honduras started to pick up. Her selling stand was a fence.

With her first loan she bought more materials to prepare chorizos and to increase sales, and then she leased a piece of land to formally start the business.

Her dedication and efforts were the basic elements to make the business grow.

Thanks to the support and trust she received from the Credit Association, she was able to raise 5 children, to buy the land where she established her business, to build a house and expand the store, to acquire freezers, showcases, and other equipment needed by the business.

Doña Amparito says that the most important thing for her was to gain the trust of the Credit Association, and therefore she always took good care of her credit by making her payments every day.