Empower 600 Women in Ghana with Microcredit Loans

People living at 'School Park Achie', a neighborhood at Nkawie Panin in the Nkawie District now have access to a provisions shop, thanks to the business skills of Tiwaah, a 48-year-old client of the Micro Credit Program being implemented by Self Help International (SHI) in some rural communities of the Ashanti Region of Ghana.

Tiwaah, a mother of four, who has been a client of the program for 18 years now, says the shop has become a blessing to her neighborhood because items that they did not formerly have easy access to in the past are now  within their reach for them to buy. 

Until the establishment of her shop, her neighbors used to walk between two to three kilometers,or a distance of about 30 minutes, to Abonti Kesiamu to acquire these items. Hence, a round trip from her neighborhood to Abonti Kesiamu to buy everyday items took about one hour. 

“I established this shop only in May this year after I took a loan of 7,000 GHC from the Micro Credit Program which enabled me to buy and stock it with all these items”, she said.

The items being sold at Tiwaahs shop include provisions such as tinned fish, milk, milo, sugar, as well as toiletries such as soap, toothpaste, pampers and tissues and household items such as mosquito spray among many others.  

Tiwaahs dream is to run a multi-purpose one stop shop where community members can access most of their needs.

 “I  purchased a freezer to set up a cold store within the shop to sell fish and meat and a second freezer to sell a range of soft drinks, and other products that need to be refrigerated or frozen including malt, kaiser, puka, lucozade, shortbread, bottled and sachet water among many others. In addition, I have a fufu pounding machine so people can come and pound their fufu here,” she explains.

To make conditions in the shop more convenient, Tiwaah also spent money to connect pipe borne water to her shop so that she can cook her own meals right in the shop. “I even give some of my food to passersby when they come around at the time when I have prepared food, " she says.  

“Business is lucrative because it is the first and only provisions shop in this vicinity. Until I established this shop, people here would have to walk a significant distance to buy all the items being sold here”.

Recounting how she came to learn about the Micro Credit Program, she said “I was pregnant with my third child who is now 18 years old when I saw some women gathered in a house nearby. Upon interrogation, I was told the women were being organized to access loans from an NGO so I decided to join.”

“When I first joined the Micro Credit Program, I was selling kenkey by then. I asked for and received a loan of 100 GHC which I invested in my kenkey business and expanded it. I stopped my kenkey business only last year to enable me to venture into new business areas.”

Touching on her relationship with the Micro Credit Team over the past 18 years, Tiwaah said, “The Micro Credit Team has helped me a lot. They are quiet in retrieving their loans and do not expose their creditors like other organizations do. No one even knows I have been collecting loans from them. They also listen to us when we have issues so over the past 18 years, I have had no problem with them.”

Tiwaah was confident that she would choose the SHI Micro Credit Program over others if given a choice, saying, “This (the SHI Micro Credit Program) is my only source of money. I do not collect money from anywhere else. People are not even aware that I have taken a loan from them.”

“It (SHI) is a good organization. They know we are not well off and do not get angry if we delay in paying our loans. They help us a lot.”

She appealed to the Micro Credit Team to increase the amount of money loaned to her in her next loan acquisition so that she can put all her plans for her shop into action to enable her to serve her community even better, reiterating, “My shop has become a blessing to the community because things they could not buy in the past, they can now buy here.”

She also called on SHI to consider adding “Susu Collection”, which is the payment of small amounts of money on a monthly basis by loan clients as personal savings, to the Micro Credit Program, saying, “I was able to use my money from our local Susu Collection to buy a fridge. It can also be given back to the clients as a monetary package after they finally quit the Micro Credit Program.”