Breaking gender stereotypes

Rosemary Kimani is an ambitious woman, who runs a hardware store within the Nakuru town centre. Opening up a hardware business is no easy feat, especially for a woman in Kenya due to a lack of investment capital and male domination. Loans are greatly needed to thrive in this business in order to secure inventory, machines and for an overall expansion and diversification of the business itself. Through accumulating stocks and other fixed assets, Ms. Kimani had big plans for her business. Below is a recent update on the progress of her business. The interview was conducted by Zidisha’s Client Relationship Manager in Kenya, Vivien:

Hello Lenders,
My name is Vivien Barbier and I’m a client relationship interns for Zidisha in Kenya. Today, I visited Mrs Rosemary Kimani in her shop in Nakuru where I also add the chance to meet one of her daughter and grandson. 

Mrs. Kimani operates a small shop in the street that sells plumbers material and other hardware products. She is a wholesaler and do not sale on retail. Her job consists mainly of visiting the retail shop in the area to sell her products. Today, especially because of the meeting I had with her, she stayed on the shop and sent her employee on the field to sell and to collect payments. To stay competitive with other hardware suppliers, she often had to agree to be paid by her customers after a few days. She is doing only for customer that she knows well but this makes her business in need of a large working capital, which limits the growth of her business. 

Using the loan of Zidisha, she was able to buy materials before receiving the orders from her customers. It allows her business to be much more efficient and competitive. Due to her good knowledge of the market she is able to predict demands and to order quantities required. In the future, she will request a bigger loan to Zidisha, so that she can increase further the size of her stock. She also wants to grow even more her business by adding electrical supplies to her product portfolio. She already has a small inventory of electrical supplies but it is too limited to make her an important player in the local market. She also plans to open a new shop in a better location; a new shopping mall that is currently being built. She already made the request for the boutique and is waiting for the answer of the real-estate developer. 

Mrs Kimani and her family have not always lived in Nakuru; they had a house in Kiptangwanyi but were forced to abandon it during the post election violence in 2007. They started a new life in Nakuru and pray that next year general election will be peaceful. I’m very happy to see that she has been able to put her life back on track after such tragic events. 

Even if she is a successful entrepreneur, Mrs Kimani doesn’t know how to use a computer or to speak English. Alice, her daughter will help her to interact with Zidisha. She is very thankful to all Zidisha lenders for their support. She told me several times, when I was in her shop, that what I was seeing had been made possible by Zidisha. 

A Barber Shop is Born

Hello, my name is Traci Yoshiyama, Zidisha’s Kenya Client Relationship Manager. I am currently residing in Mugaa, visiting Zidisha borrowers in nearby villages. 

“I’m very hard working,” says Jane Wambui without a tinge of boastfulness, but rather a sense of pride. Rightfully so, Jane is 27 years old and already a successful businesswoman, not to mention a mother of two. Jane and her husband own a kinyozi (salon) and a produce stall in Miti Mingi. As Jane and I speak from her stall, we peer across the street at the kinyozi where we can see her husband cutting the hair of a young gentleman. In another minute, Jane gets a customer wanting to buy bananas, evidence that their two businesses are thriving. 

Jane is an experienced Zidisha member, already repaying her 2nd loan. She comments on how she finished repaying her first loan 4 months early, and she anticipates following this example for her second. The creation of her family’s kinyozi was possible because of Zidisha. Through her first loan of Ksh 50,000, Jane was able to rent a space, buy all the necessary machinery (i.e. shavers, razors), stock her store with hair products and shoes, and even buy two batteries that enable her shop to stay open during the frequent power outages. While her husband is in charge of styling the men, Jane takes care of the children haircuts when not working at her produce stall. We have all heard of children being fearful of haircuts, with scissors too close for comfort and strange noises and smells permeating the air. Jane gestures towards her face, implying this is the answer to their haircut jitters. Although both Jane and her husband have no formal training in barbering, she explains to me that, “some courses come from the heart”. To further prove how hard working she is, Jane speaks about her two cows, one of which was bought with her second Zidisha loan. With the milk from her cows, she is able to make Ksh 15,000 a month, which then assists in paying for school fees (both boys are in boarding schools) and rent for her kinyozi. 

Upon leaving, Jane reaches for a banana, the ripest of the bunch, and gives it to me as a gift. Refusing to take my money, she makes me promise to visit again, even extending an invitation to her home. As I make my 6km descent home, I think about Miti Mingi, one of the smallest villages I have seen in Kenya, but filled with people possessing the biggest of hearts.

An education that paid off

Studying clothing production for four long years has surely led to fruitful results for young businesswoman, Oureye Faye, who started a sewing business after receiving her diploma. Personal and economic hardships such as her father passing away and her household ceiling breaking did not deter her willpower to thrive financially, especially in her efforts to support her four children and the families of her brothers and sisters. It is imperative that she gets back to her sewing space as soon as possible to generate income for her family. She is using her Zidisha loan to achieve this objective, along with investing in fabrics and expanding her workshop. One of our Client Relationship Interns, Sam Gant was able to interview the ambitious Mrs. Faye about her business plans, the details of which are provided below:

My name is Sam Gant and I'm currently one of the Client Relationship Managers active in Senegal. On Thursday June 14th I stopped by Mme Faye's atelier in Parcelles 12, a small workshop attached to her family's house with bookshelves full of brightly colored fabric and a very fat rabbit dozing under the footpedal of her sewing machine. Mme Faye is garrulous and savvy, and explained to me that she had divided her Zidisha loan into three parts so as not to use it all to quickly. Due to the fact that many clients buy BouBous on credit, she needs to have a significant stock of capital to buy fabric to make new clothes while waiting to be paid for completed products. She sells between four and six boubous per month for between 10,000 and 15,000 CFA depending on the complexity of the order and her relationship with the client. She is able to finish elaborate garments in a matter of days, a cabability born of experience (she explained that she has been making traditional clothes since the age of 15, 15 years of experience by now.)

Although she supports a large family and the profit margins of couture are thin, Mme Faye's Zidisha loan allows her to dramatically expand her client base and receive income more regularly. I hope to post a few photos I took of her and her family over the next few days. If you comment she is also planning to put up a post sometime next week and I'm sure she would be happy to answer specific questions.

Natural Healing in Dakar

Mme. Traore

Living in a developing country presents many challenges that Westerners have long forgotten about. Over the counter healthcare products, for example, are something that most can purchase at a whim. In Dakar, Senegal things are not so easy. Madame Aissatou Traore is trying to provide some relief for those in need of such healthcare products. By partnering with Arizona based Forever Living Products, Aissatou is able to distribute their health products in Parcelles, a neighborhood of Dakar. Sam Gant, our Client Relationship Intern, had a chance to meet with Mme. Traore recently. You can read about their meeting in Sam's own words below:

Dear Lenders,

My name is Sam Gant and I'm one of the Client Relationship Managers here in Senegal. On Thursday June 7th I had the opportunity to meet with Aissatou in her home in Parcelles, where she showed me both the aloe vera plans that she grows in her courtyard and the astounding variety of aloe vera refined products she sells--through her company she has access to more than 300 products. Mme Traore believes strongly in the value of natural supplements as preventative management, and explained how a variety of dietary supplements and ointments could serve to keep her clients healthy. Aissatou is a model vendor for FOREVER products-- she has used aloe products to help her mother through a bout of illness, and with her profits from sales she recently moved to a larger apartment. 

She is a very capable and canny businesswoman who is willing to put in long hours of travel to succeed in the entrepreneurial field. She recently made a14 hour long day trip 50 kilometers outside of Dakar to spread her products, and keeps meticulous notes of all of her clients to keep them stocked with their chosen supplements. 

Mme Traore is very grateful to her lenders for supporting her, and works hard to overcome any setbacks she encounters. 

Sipping Tea in Nakuru

Our Client Relationship Manager Achintya Rai recently met with another one of our borrowers from Nakuru, Kenya. Margaret Wanjiku runs a food kiosk in Nakuru where she proudly serves the best tea the area! Check out what Achintya had to say about their encounter below:

Hello Lenders,

My name is Achintya Rai. I paid a visit to Margaret Wanjiku Kara on 28th March 2012 in the Rongai area of Nakuru (Kenya)

Margaret owns a small teashop in Rongai. Margaret took the Zidisha loan to buy stock for her shop and to pay the school fee of her daughter who’s in standard 6. She bought things like milk, charcoal, flour etc. with the help of her Zidisha loan and was able to increase her customer base. So much so that now she is planning to open another teashop nearby. The new shop will be looked after by her daughter (Margaret has three daughters and the name of her shop is “Mama Judy”, which literally means- mother of Judy, Judy being one of her daughters).

When I visited Margaret, she was very busy and there was a constant stream of customers at her shop to drink her tea or buy mandazi- a type of snack made by deep-frying leavened dough. I asker her for tea and speaking very frankly, the tea was the best I’ve had in Kenya- and I had a lot of tea in Kenya. Margaret’s tea was richer and had stronger flavors. Though Margaret was quite busy, she graciously answered all my questions. It was a little tricky talking to her because even though she could understand me and I could understand her, many people in the shop volunteered to translate both of us. Margaret was constantly smiling in all this commotion and came across to me as a very pleasant person. She was shy when I took out my camera but I think that’s the reason why her picture came out so well.

Margaret stays on her small shamba (farm), which is a few kilometers away from her shop. She has a few goats, chickens and cows on her shamba. With the next loan she wants to buy a plot in Rongai center and later on build on it.

My one regret is that I could not finish the tea that day. Kenyans serve tea in these huge half-liter mugs and that day I was on a tight schedule. Margaret also later refused to let me pay for the tea, but I explained to her that Zidisha’s aim was to see her business flourish and do well and there was no way I was going to take away from her revenue so she finally allowed me to pay.

I wish Margaret the best for her future

Achintya
11th May 2012 

Full House

Our Client Relationship Manager recently met with Eunice Ngetha in Embakasi, Kenya. Eunice runs a detergent business where she sells her products to the public and institutions. They are dangerous chemicals but Eunice is experienced. With three children of her own, and an additional 5 she and her husband adopted, you could say she has a full house!

Check our what Achintya had to say after meeting Eunice:


Dear lenders,

My name is Achintya Rai and I am Zidisha’s current Kenya Client Relationship Intern. On 7th March I met Eunice Ngetha in Embakasi area of Utawala in Nairobi.

Eunice was part of a Self Help Group that taught its members to make detergents and disinfectants. Eunice later started her own business of making these and selling at prices lower than the market. The detergents and disinfectants Eunice makes are used by hospitals and schools to wash floors, clothes, utensils and lavatories. 

The chemicals Eunice uses are dangerous to store so she buys them only after she has received an order. And she receives many of them. She said to me “Even if I go to America I’ll find an order!” I have no doubt she will because Eunice is one of the most confident persons I have met here. 

Eunice told me about an incident which confirmed to me that she is a great marketer. To transport drums of detergents to faraway places, she loads them in public buses and the customer unloads them at his location. She once lost 25,000 Kenyan Shillings worth of detergents when the customer told her he never received it. But she never complained. And now she has very good relations with this customer.

Eunice found Zidisha on her own. Her earlier loans were very costly so when she needed capital for her business she ‘googled’ it and found Zidisha. When I met her she had not yet received the disbursement of her loan but she planned to use it to buy chemicals for this big airport contract she had recently got.

Her husband is the principal of a school in Machakos where Eunice also used to work as a matron. She left that job and shifted to Nairobi when the business picked up.

Eunice has three children, two of whom are studying. She has also adopted five children. Three of these are orphans in her village and the other two are bright students from a school she went to sell her products to. The principal told her that these students couldn’t afford their school fee and Eunice readily decided to sponsor them. This is one trait I have found common in many Kenyans, this incredible desire to share their wealth.

Eunice’s dream is to build a school. She told me that she has already bought 3 acres of land in an area called Embu for this. I expect great things from Eunice. With her energy and her desire to help others, I wish she succeeds in whatever endeavors she undertakes.

Achintya
Nairobi
9th April 2012 

Grace and her Donkey

Grace Wanjiru

Meet Grace Wanjiru, one of our borrowers from Nairobi, Kenya. Grace is a mother of three children, and one grandchild. After the death of her husband, Grace was forced to leave her home by her in-laws. Because Grace still needed to pay for her youngest son's education, she decided to start her own business! Grace ran a shop where she sold various household items and foodstuffs. Grace applied to Zidisha so she could purchase more items to sell in her shop, and increase her profit. However, because of high rent and low profit margins, Grace sold her business and started a new endeavor!

Our Client Relationship Manager met with Grace recently. Read about his meeting with Grace and her new business:

Grace with Joyce and her cart.

Dear lenders,

My name is Achintya Rai and I am Zidisha’a current Kenya Client Relationship Intern. On 10th March I paid a visit to Grace Wanjiru in Utawala area of Nairobi.

Grace took the loan from Zidisha to increase the stock of her shop. But the rent she was paying for her shop was quite high and the returns were not enough. So she sold that business and used the money to buy a donkey and a cart. She uses this to transport water to construction sites.

The day I visited Grace it was quite hot. She told me she transports about 20 drums of water in each trip and she is able to make 7 to 8 trips in a day. This is hard labor, especially in that temperature. But Grace seemed happy with her new business and was quite thankful to Zidisha.

Grace has three children, two of whom have finished their education. Her youngest son stays with his maternal grandmother in Naivasha where he is studying (Grace pays the school fee). He recently cleared the form-1 exams well and Grace was very hopeful about his future.

On my way to meet Grace, I saw a man at a bore-well (place where donkey cart owners like Grace buy water from) beating his donkey. My first impulse was to shout at him, but I resisted, being in a foreign land. He stopped when he saw me looking but it was an upsetting site. To be fair though this is very rare in Kenya. In fact this was the first time I saw someone mistreating an animal. I was very pleasantly surprised when I found that Grace was extremely nice and kind to her donkey Joyce. She patted Joyce affectionately many times and unconsciously caressed her neck while talking to me. Joyce contently closed her eyes. When I asked Grace she told me that’s how Joyce caught on her sleep between breaks.

With her next loan Grace wants to buy a knitting machine to knit pullovers. These are in high demand as part of school uniforms and with many new schools coming up in the area, Grace sees this as a good opportunity.

As a last note I must inform the lenders that Joyce is pregnant and will be expecting a baby donkey in Jan next year. I hope Grace posts pictures.

Achintya
Nairobi
9th April 2012 

Joyce the Donkey

The Next Bill Gates

Aissatou Traore is a borrower living in Dakar, Senegal. Madame Traore is a widowed mother  who works to support her son and mother. Mme. Traore is a partner with the American company Forever Living, based in Arizona. Forever Living sells its aloe vera, and various other health products, through a network of independent distributors across the globe. Madame Traore sells the Forever Living products in her surrounding area to a number of customers.

Mme. Traore used her Zidisha loan to purchase $780 worth of inventory from Forever Living in order to boost her income. Tragically, thieves broke into  her home and stole all of the inventory she'd purchased. This did not stop the resolute Mme. Traore.

Read more about Madame Traore from Zidisha's own Director Julia Kurnia, who recently wrote about their meeting in Senegal.

Dear all,

I was fortunate to have the occasion to meet with Madame Traore at the Senegal headquarters of Forever Living, a direct selling company that produces aloe vera and other natural health products. Forever Living is based in Arizona, but markets its products through a worldwide network of tens of thousands of independent distributors, including Mme Traore.

Mme Traore is the sole breadwinner for her elderly mother and fourteen-year-old son, who she hopes will have the chance to go to university in Europe or the US someday. She has a genius for marketing, and our conversation soon turned to the benefits of her products. She gave a riveting presentation, skillfully weaving international statistics, personal experience and client success stories into a mesmerizing narrative that left me thoroughly convinced that aloe vera toothpaste is, after all, a must-have staple of good oral health. 

Mme Traore used her Zidisha loan of $780 to purchase a large inventory of Forever Living products, which ought to have boosted her earnings substantially. Unfortunately, most of the inventory was lost to a thief who broke into her home and stole her stock before she had the chance to sell it. Completely out of money to buy new stock but undeterred, Mme Traore contacted her best clients one by one and offered a deal: she would give them a special discount if they would agree to pay in advance for the products, rather than upon delivery. She used the advances to restart selling, at a profit margin that was razor thin due to the discounts. She makes up for the narrow profits with volume: her notebook contains the names of several hundred clients, many of whom are located in rural villages a day's journey from Dakar city. On the days she "goes into the bush" to deliver her products to the villages, Mme Traore wakes up at four in the morning to prepare the day's meals for her fourteen-year-old son, and returns home as late as one o'clock the following night. This strategy has enabled Mme Traore to slowly reconstitute her working capital, while also making regular repayment installments on her Zidisha loan, which is now 78% repaid.

She seemed completely undeterred by all of these obstacles. By way of explanation, Mme Traore cited the example of Bill Gates: he started on a small scale as well, and she is simply doing the same. She is a voracious reader. On the day we met, she was reading a French translation of "The Leader in You" by Dale Carnegie. Mme Traore said she was inspired by Mr Carnegie's idea that there is a "mine of gold" inside each one of us, and that the best way to fully realize our potential is to develop our own business. She values her freedom, and says that nothing can stop her from reaching her ambitions.

Best,

Julia Kurnia
Director, Zidisha Inc.

Future Plans...

Ouréye Faye is an entrepreneurial mother from Dakar, Senegal. She not only supports her three daughters and her son, but also the families of her brothers and sisters. Being the oldest member of her family carries many responsibilities! Mrs. Faye studied dressmaking, knitting, and embroidery, she earned degrees for each. After receiving her degrees she started her own sewing company making boubous (see picture).

Our in-country Client Relationship Manager, Stephen, recently wrote about his meeting with Mrs. Faye. Read about their encounter below:




Hello Lenders,

Friday, I had a wonderful experience with Oureye Faye. She apologized for not finishing her last payment sooner but wants to thank the lenders from the bottom of her heart for everything that she has been able to accomplish with this loan. 

Business
From the 400,000cfas loan that she received with the help of Zidisha, Madame Faye was able to buy a new sewing machine which she uses for her booba making business that is a very popular industry in Dakar. She buys her fabric from Mali because it’s the best quality and she makes boobas and sells the rest of the fabric in Senegal. She now has three sewing machines

Education.
Madame Faye has also used her money to invest in education. In Senegal, the public education system has a reputation for not being the most efficient in terms of quality and outcome. With the funds Madame Faye has earned, she has been able to put her 4 children through private school. Even though Madame Faye is married, she is the main provider of her household. She explained to me that every morning she wakes up at 5 a.m. and works until 9 p.m. The majority of her earnings are for her children, her main priority. However, she also pays for the gas bill. Even though Madame Faye is married she is obligated to work like most women in Senegal because consistent salaries are not guaranteed. One works today and possibly tomorrow.

Future Plans 
For a future project, Madame Faye explained that she would to love buy a glass door and some furnishings to organize her shop and display her work. This will also enable her to work very close to home. She has big plans for this project and is ready to take her business to the next level. 


Client Relationship Manager Intern
Stephen 

A Warm Welcoming..

Fatou Tall is a 24 year old medical student living in Dakar, Senegal. She pays for her tuition by selling cosmetic products including cologne, perfume and other bathroom products. She does all this while running a chicken coop from her home. She is quite the go-getter! After graduating she would like to sell medical products. Fatou used her Zidisha loan to buy stock for her business and has already payed 86% of her loan back!

                                                                         Fatou Tall

Read about her recent meeting with our interns below:

"Today myself and Cameron, another intern, met with Fatou and her family. Fatou is showing strong progress on her loan, with almost 80% of it paid off. Yesterday, she took out the last portion of it. She has sold almost all of her merchandise–consisting of jeans and women's shoes at the moment, although she has also sold cosmetic products, blouses, and perfume.

Because she relies on the word-of-mouth of her friends to sell her products, she has found it difficult to balance her personal and business relationships but has grown a lot since the beginning of her loan and is now making her payments on time. She uses the proceeds from her merchandise to buy more at the central market in Dakar, Marché Sandaga, as well as to help support the seventeen members of her family. Currently, there are 6 other breadwinners in the family, working as vendors, accountants, civil servants, and electricians. However, she still finds it difficult to support her eight younger siblings–all of whom are in school, either secondary or university–as well as her elderly mother, and her baby nephew, Jacques Abdoulaye Tall.

When we walked into the house, we were warmly welcomed by Fatou. Over the course of the afternoon, we met her family, as well as various neighbors , and friends, one of whom, Dominque, is a fellow Zidisha borrower. We found Fatou cheerful and confident in her abilities both as a shrewd bargainer (she inventories in the enormous Marché Sandaga, no mean feat) and retailer. She proudly displayed the meager remains of her inventory, saying that she would have to restock far more quickly than she had anticipated.

Fatou is very motivated to pay off the rest of her Zidisha loan and ask for another one. She plans on using this second loan to continue building her business and supporting her family. Her long-terms plans involve renting a stall in the market next to the École Dior in order to have a home base for her increasingly lucrative and stable business, as well as a possible boutique, inch'Allah."