Six months ago, I had the delight of
sitting under a mango tree at John’s dad’s house in rural Mityana district of
Uganda, and being part of the seminar that launched the Missing Link
Microfinance project to the local community. Many neighbours had turned up to
hear how the scheme was to run, and a lot of interest in taking part was shown.
Today, I returned to the area to see how
the project is going. Thirty-four loans have been given out, each of 300,000
Ugandan shillings (roughly £60), and so far no one has defaulted on their
repayments. Loans are given out to individuals after an assessment visit by
Kaifa, the local project officer, who chats through their plans with them,
ensures they know what they are signing up to, and reviews their repayment
ability.
Each individual has to be part of a small
group – usually 4 or 5 people – and the others in the group act as guarantors
on the repayments, as well as deciding between them in what order group members
will be put forward for a loan.
Loans are being used for a number of
things: developing new farming opportunities, expanding small businesses and
covering the upfront lump sum required for school fees seem to be the three
main categories, but within those categories there are a number of different
ways that the money is being invested.
Two ladies that I met today show that
diversity.
One lady is Doreen. Doreen is just 29 years
old, has two sons aged 14 and 16, and got as far as 2nd year of high
school (equivalent of yr9 in the UK).
She told us that she wants to expand her
hotel business, which sounded pretty intriguing given the remoteness of the
location. We discussed it further and she said that her hotel is one room in
size and can hold 20 guests. At this point my imagination was going into
over-drive, but then Doreen said that her guests don’t sleep, they just eat.
Aah – for hotel read restaurant – mystery solved!
Anyway, Doreen has decided that the best
way to develop her restaurant next is to purchase a fridge in which she can
store drinks for the customers. Apparently none of the eating establishments in
the area have a fridge, so nobody can buy a cold drink – definitely a gap in
the market.
The microfinance loan from Missing Link can
help to fill that gap, and as a result should bring lots of extra custom for
Doreen and so kick-start even more expansion of her business that will bring
benefit to her, her family and the wider community
The other lady I met is Mary. Mary got her
loan a few months back now, and was very keen to show me how she has used it to
develop her business in a few ways. When she got her loan, she was just a
shop-keeper, with a little store that sold a bit of almost everything. But to
that end it was like a lot of other little stores that also sold a little bit
of everything, and for Mary it was important to find a way to stand out from
the crowd, and so entice people in to her shop.
So she got a Missing Link loan and bought a
pool table! This now has pride of place outside the shop, happily placed under
a shelter to provide shade for the players. And as those players have to go
into the shop to get the pool cues, there is opportunity to convince them that
they need to buy extra items along the way!
Mary also used some of the money to buy
petrol by the jerry can which she then sells on to the motorbike owners by the
bottle, making sufficient profit along the way to enable more petrol to be
bought and sold.
When I asked Mary about her family, she
gathered a young brood of 4 children around her, which I think are all hers
(never totally sure though!). Its lovely to think that these youngsters will
have a better chance of education now that their mum is bringing in enough
money through her expanded business to pay the school costs.
Before the loan, and before the expansion
of the business, Mary may well have been faced with the dilemma of choosing
which children went to school when – a choice no parent should ever have to
make. Thanks to Missing Link Microfinance that choice doesn’t need to be
considered for this family, nor for the 33 other families who have benefited
from the loans.
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