Our History
SOSTENICA, INC.
The idea behind SOSTENICA, Inc. was born in 1989. The Nicaraguan economy had slipped from recession into wide-spread depression following more than 15 years of civil strife and war. Nicaragua’s battered economy had ceased to meet the most basic needs of the country’s rapidly growing population. SOSTENICA’s Nicaraguan partner organization, CEPRODEL (The Center for the Promotion of Local Development), which was founded in 1989, began taking steps to support and promote economic and community development in and around Managua.
In 1990 a trial micro-loan of $500 went to the Cooperativa Farabundo Martí y Sandino, a women’s weaving cooperative, as an experiment in small scale economic development. This cooperative, begun in 1984, had become inactive by 1988 due to lack of working capital needed to buy yarn. Could a potentially productive group of six women overcome the many obstacles facing producers throughout Nicaragua?
The results were impressive. Within six months, these industious women had set up six looms for full-time production, paid themselves modest but livable wages, repaid their first loan, and accumulated enough capital to reinvest in their cooperative.
The success of this worker-owned, women-run business encouraged the founder of SOSTENICA to expand this initial experiment. In 1992, a handful of individuals invested a total of $75,000 to create a larger credit program in León, Nicaragua. Two funds were set in motion: the first aimed at medium-sized producers, the second (a micro-loan fund) aimed at micro-entrepreneurs. Joining the individual investors, the Spanish government development agency (Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional) contributed $20,000 in matching dollars to the effort. These US and Spanish partners conducted an extensive survey of Nicaraguan non-profits, and in 1993 they chose CEPRODEL as their micro-loan fund administrator. León City Hall also joined in this experiment towards municipal economic development.
Out of this cooperative effort, SOSTENICA, Inc.’s precursor (also called SOSTENICA) was born. This new micro-loan fund focused its efforts on improving the economy of Río Chiquito, the poorest neighborhood in the city of León. In its first 33 months this new fund extended 974 micro-loans worth a total of $335,653.
In 2001 SOSTENICA, Inc. incorporated in Pennsylvania as a non-profit and received its federal 501(c)(3) status from the IRS.