By Alka Subramanian | Executive Director/Founder
Today I would like you to meet Agness and share her story. Agness is one of the ladies in our micro loans program who received business training and a small loan to start a grocery business a few years back. She worked hard and her business did well. Agness repaid her loan in full, expanded her business and continues to work hard and expand her business every day. She now boasts of a refrigerator and a freezer to store soft drinks, and meat for her customers and her store carries several high value items like light fixtures and hair styling accessories. Agness is our hero and a role model to hundreds of women in her community.
Last month, Agness's story was chosen to be published by the UN Women's website. She is our hero and a role model for hundreds of women in our community in Zambia. I am sure you will love this story.
Agness runs her business in Matero - one of the poorest and largest compounds in Lusaka, Zambia. Matero is characterized with a high incidence of HIV, malaria and TB and unemployment rates upwards of 60%. Most residents in this community are poor and live on less than $2 per day. They are able to purchase grocery items in very small quantities and cannot travel far to shop as they have no means of transportation. Businesses like Agness's are a valuable resource for members of her community.
There are several women like Agness in our micro loans program who are working hard at their businesses despite their difficult circumstances. Earnings from their businesses enable them to take better care of their families and their businesses provide a valuable service to residents of their community. In addition, they have become role models, teachers, and mentors for other women (and men) in the community.
Please donate generously so we can continue to empower women by providing them an opportunity to learn a marketable skill, run a business, and keep their children in school. Your donations will help us provide business training, small loans, business mentoring and monitoring to women impacted by HIV, and AIDS in Zambia.
Thanks for empowering women in Zambia.
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