She Says: "We Want to Escape from Poverty"

During our trip to Podor in Senegal we visited a group of ladies with whom we had made Micro Loans

The Local Street Market near Podor

Question:  What is a Micro Loan?  

Answer:  A very small amount of money made available as a cash loan (with no interest) to enable the borrower to engage in activity to boost their income.  In almost all cases the amount is less than $100.

Part of the efforts of our non-profit Andando Foundation are directed toward economic assistance, allowing those in West Africa a chance to have access to capital in the form of Micro Loans.  

These tiny cash loans, averaging $60, are used by the recipient to start a small business or otherwise actively pursue the opportunity to turn this small amount into something larger.  They are almost always fully repaid, with a paid back rate of around 98%.

Here are some stories of how the money is used:

We had a meeting with a group of ladies who had received Micro Loans from Andando.  Many of them shared their stories of progress and success. 

1.  One of the ladies who got a micro loan used the money to make ice cream.  Not the conventional kind like we think of, but a mixture of fruit from the Baobab tree (called Monkey Bread), combined with water and sugar and then frozen.  

It's quite delicious and fairly simple to make.  Understand that this lady had no money or resource of any kind to buy the ingredients, including sugar and little plastic bags used to make single servings to sell.   Her loan was for $50, part of which she also used to rent a small freezer space from a nearby shop.  

Over time - a few months - she developed a clientele.  It's really hot and dry there, so people liked being able to buy a small portion of this "ice cream" for a few pennies.  She eventually turned her $50 loan into $290, for a profit (after she repaid the loan) of $240!

2.  Another lady bought and raised a sheep, which gave birth to a lamb, and she fed them both with special feed to get them ready for the annual "feast" or meal celebration, not unlike our Thanksgiving.  She sold them both for a tidy profit of over $200.

We asked her if she was able to make good use of this money, and she motioned toward a young child, who was handicapped.  She was able to buy medicine and clothes (the child can't walk and wears out clothing by crawling around on hands and knees).  She took the girl to a doctor and paid her medical bills.  Talk about life changing. 

3.  A third lady we spoke with was probably the most entrepreneurial and had used her $45 loan money to buy seed to grow rice.  She planted on her local small farm patch where she grew and cared for the rice, and eventually harvested thirty 50 lb bags of rice.  She borrowed a local donkey cart to transport the rice to her house.

She sold all the rice one bag at a time from her home, as local people came to buy from her.  Because the rice was locally grown and very good, she sold out (she kept some seed for next year).  

She made over $300.  That is more money than she has ever made.

She was very pleased with results and thanked Andando for the help.  Now that her loan is paid back, someone else in the community can borrow the money as the loans revolve in order to give everyone a chance.  

She concluded her remarks by saying: "We want to escape from Poverty.  We will work hard.  Our whole community will benefit".  

These encouraging stories illustrate a key principle of how Andando is operated - a little bit of money goes a long way.  You don't have to spend vast amounts of money to make a big difference, indeed the opposite is often true. And we don't have a lot of overhead, in fact very little.  We like to keep things efficient and productive. 

It doesn't take a lot of money to change someone's life.