By Deborah Smith | Treasurer
Back in 2012, WMI began working with Rachel Blackmore, director of Weston Turville Wells for Tanzania, to add a microfinance program to their clean water and food security programs. We’ve enjoyed the partnership and the loan program there has been very successful due to the strength of the local staff. Recently, Rachel shared a story with us that we thought you would enjoy!
Rachel writes, On our way back from reviewing one of the remote villages we work in, our local coordinator, Ponja, mentioned that we had no spare tire. He mentioned it because he could hear a hissing. He’d lent the spare to someone else in need the week before and had not had a chance to replace it and had never had a puncture before.
I asked if we should call a garage in the nearest town (three hour’s drive away) to bring us a spare.
‘There is no phone network’
‘How far to the nearest network signal?’
’20 kms’
‘So what shall we do?’
‘We will drive on it’
Fortunately we hadn’t bumped along far when we saw a Belgian couple that I’d chatted to earlier at a viewpoint. I’d been surprised to see Europeans driving in the area.
They kindly lent us their spare and we followed each other back. They told us they had bought fuel from a Maasai woman, which surprised them, as they expected to pay a man. When they offered the money to her husband he laughed and pointed to his wife as the person to pay. They asked if it meant that women were in control here? I said only when they have a loan and their own business.
I later learned from our staff that this woman is called Naihiki and she had a WTWT/WMI loan and has a business selling fuel to rangers and tourists. Our staff buys from her, too, and explained that she is one of two wives who were struggling to feed their children because their husband drinks. Since giving her a loan and supporting her in starting her successful fuel business things have got a lot better for the family.
Coincidentally, when we got back, we met Naihiki coming to grind her maize at the grinding machine. It was lovely to meet her with her daughter. She explained that she buys fuel in the town, brings it up by bus and then carries the cans on her donkey to the road for her customers.
Rachel reports that she attended several loan group meetings on her winter visit. The women were enthusiastic about the success of their businesses and said many more people in the community are requesting loans. Rachel told us they asked to us to fund more. Each of the loan groups gives itself a name. Sometimes they use colors or names of birds or fruit. The picture above shows some of the women in the loan group they named Naidimi. It means Able in English.
WMI has agreed to provide more funding in 2018. Won’t you help? We want to continue to provide business loans to all of the Naidimi women of east Africa. You never know when an entrepreneurial woman will be standing by the road ready to sell you some fuel when you are low!
By Robyn Nietert | President, WMI
By Deborah Smith | WMI Board of Directors
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