From the market stall to your own shop

Hawas Microfinance Project

In June 2019, Hawa received €100 from the “Society for Empowering the Needy” (SEN) through KETAAKETI Microfinance from €100. With this money she bought various goods for everyday use and went from village to village to sell them. After a year she was able to pass on the money to the next family and earned enough to buy a permanent market stall and sell her goods there. In the meantime, she even has a larger shop in her house, from which she sells rice, fish and vegetable oil, among other things.

She explained that she enjoys the business because she is independent now. Hawa says she can buy everything herself without having to take out a high-interest loan. Hawa and her husband say their standard of living has improved tremendously thanks to microfinance.

She can now buy enough groceries to eat at home with the family. She can also buy school uniforms and learning materials for her children and send them to school.

Hawa would like to buy a mobile phone to communicate with its customers in larger cities. However, this is not yet possible. She has two main customers from whom she buys her goods and who in turn sells them to the people of her village and surrounding villages. She rents motorbikes to transport her goods, which she buys in larger cities, to her village. Sometimes she buys $500 worth of goods and sells them at a profit.



She emphasizes that business is better in the rainy season than in the dry season. This is because during the rainy season, people engage in agriculture and do not have enough to eat. Most of them need to buy food to work on their farms.

She and her family now also own a goat, a sheep and four chickens. They breed these animals so they can resell them. Hawa also says that she would like to continue expanding her business with more money so that she could soon use the larger income to finance her children's education at the university. Some of her children are still in high school, others in junior high school.