Juana Bach Hernandez
San Francisco neighborhood, Cunén, El Quiché, Guatemala
77 years old
“Having hands and being able to work with them is a blessing.”
Doña Juana has been in the business of making artisanal bread “called shecas” for more than 10 years and in her community she is recognized as the lady of the shecas. She became a widow with 9 children 14 years ago, to get ahead she instructed her family to work alongside her in the bakery.
Juana Bach's routine is more intense on Thursdays and Fridays, since at four in the morning they begin the process of dipping the flour, weighing it accurately, letting it rest, and seven hours later the baking begins. Each bake is 20 loaves, in the two days they cook an average of 500.
His eldest son is in charge of going out every Saturday to a busy area of Aguacatán, Huehutenango, about 52 kilometers from Cunén. There they sell each bread for two quetzales (25 cents). Managing to sell up to 1 thousand quetzales a week.
Juana Bach requested her first microcredit with the Fundación del Centavo -FUNDACEN-, in 2013 for an amount of one thousand five hundred quetzales (192 dollars). At that time, she bought wheat and began selling in the business known as La Familia. Bach.
Ana, Doña Juana's eldest daughter, also has her business and sells in nearby towns the other days of the week. The venture of selling bread has been so successful that they have not thought about changing jobs.
Currently they have the support of a waiter, they organize themselves by tasks and distribute the bread as “sheca with sourdough and rapadura and sheca with normal flour and sugar.”
Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the Bach family was able to continue with their business, since people came to their house looking to purchase bread. In total Juana Bach has made 12 microcredits with FUNDACEN, all paid on time. You currently have a loan for Q7,000 ($896 dollars).
Mrs. Juana Bach, thanks to her good work preparing “Shecas” and the credit support received, managed to overcome the difficulties of her widowhood and although she is an elderly person, she works actively and continues to be a client of the Centavo Foundation.
