In the informal economy of Costa Rica, from street vendors to furniture makers, women are breaking through stereotypical molds and creating jobs to support themselves and their families.

Signs hang from house windows advertising everything from the sale of tires and ice cream to shoe repairs and haircuts.

The ingenuity and variety of small entrepreneurs in Costa Rica is evident in the wide range of services and products offered by kiosks, tables, and small storefronts in every corner of the country.

The National Program for Support of Small Business Owners was designed in 1992 to boost microenterprise, and to date has helped over 6,000 start or enhance their businesses. Thirty-three percent of these recipients have been women.

Aura Patricia Solís is one of more than 2,000 women who have benefited from the loans offered by the program. After 15 years of long secretarial hours behind a desk at the Banco Central, she decided her family's needs were more important than the bank's.

Quitting her job and dedicating her time to caring for her two sons, she had dreams of opening a small store. Transforming the two front rooms of her childhood home in the northern San José district of La Florida de Tibás, she opened Librería Patricia in 1994.

"Now I feel satisfied and happy with my life because I am sharing it with my family," she said, smiling. "If my son needs help with his homework, I sit down at the back table and do it with him."

But to stay competitive with neighborhood stores, Sol's had to offer more products and services. Hearing about the loans for small entrepreneurs through a friend, she decided to apply.

"With my first loan I bought a copy machine, and with my second I bought more things for the store," she said.

The small shop offers everything imaginable, from Disney character pens to chocolate candies to wrapping paper in every shade of the rainbow. "We sell everything here," says Solís.

Usually Solís is the only one behind the counter at Librería Patricia, but during the busiest days she calls on her 11-year-old son to help out.

"Our busiest seasons are during school and around holidays, Mother's Day, Easter, and Christmas," the owner explained, "and that's when I usually need him around."

At age seven, the entrepreneurial seeds were planted in Mayela Blanco. Growing up, she didn't even have a school uniform, and anything outside of bare necessity came from her pocket. So when she needed a dress for a New Year's party, the young businesswoman headed to the streets, selling oranges from local trees to buy sewing materials.

Twenty-five years later, Blanco has continued to combine her business savvy with her talent for designing clothing. After years of working as a secretary and running a small tailor shop out of her home, she could no longer keep up with her clients' demand.

She found the perfect location for her tailor shop in the old capital of Cartago, and applied for a loan. After a three-month wait Blanco was approved, and she made her first rent payment, bought two industrial sewing machines, and hired three employees.

On the dry erase board in the meeting room of her shop, Blanco has posted a message for her employees. "In order to have success, we must first believe that we are successful."

Clients from local schools and hospitals request uniforms, while others want casual or business clothing.

"They will bring in a drawing, or we will look through magazines to find the look they want," explained Blanco.

Her dream for the future is to enlarge the shop to accommodate at least four machines and more employees.

"To run a business you have to sacrifice a lot, you have to give up time and your family, and everything," explained Blanco. "I think my four sons have seen the struggle of running your own business, and they don't want to do this."

Still, she smiled, "This has taken me to a new stage in my life. I feel more powerful, independent, and free."

If Ana Badilla's pulpería keeps growing, supermarket giants Más X Menos and AutoMercado may soon have a new competitor.

"We have everything: shoes, cosmetics, books, fruits, vegetables, meat, bread, everything," said the owner of the one-stop general store in the San José district of Sagrada Familia. The pulpería has been serving the neighborhood for two years. But Badilla has been busy creating this entrepreneurial empire since 1995, when she applied for her first loan.

Her 60 faithful neighborhood clients wanted more services than Badilla could offer at her home beauty shop, so she took out a loan to purchase equipment. A desire to sell more clothing, shoes, and cosmetics that she'd been selling out of her home, plus a plea from her clients, pushed Badilla to take out a second loan in 1998, resulting in the purchase of her current store and salon.

Two years later, Badilla is on her third loan, and with her past success, she is confident this won't be her last.

"Definitely two more loans. I'd like to make the store bigger and buy a car to transport the bread to local stores," said Badilla.

The 29-year-old entrepreneur is the first in her family to open a business and has the support of everyone - including, most importantly for Badilla, her husband.

"I am moving forward every day with the support of my husband," she said. "Many women have a fear of going out on their own or doing something like this because it is so hard, but we have to open these doors."