Financial Empowerment: A Life Improved

Despite the extreme poverty women in rural Ethiopia were born into, micro-finance loans have empowered many to lift themselves onto the first rung of the ladder towards prosperity for themselves and their children. Meet some of these women.

 A mother of four, Itetu Abayneh took out a $320 loan to start a kindergarten class with her daughter Meskerem Gizachew that today serves 40 children. The loan paid for six months rent and classroom furniture. Today they beam with pride. Every three months the mother-daughter team makes close to the original loan amount through tuition.

These women borrow money offering their word that they will repay it. They have no other collateral to offer. They borrow on a group basis. So with this “moral collateral” alone, they borrow the money to build their businesses, so they can put food on the table, educate their children, and put a corrugated metal roof on their house, instead of a leaky roof made of mud and straw. Their repayment rate is 98 percent, and what they do not save they spend on food, education and shelter.

We started to supply different grain and food to a university and other organizations in town. The group has grown in size and expanded their business to include dairy production. Leteslase Geberecherkos
Chairperson of the Women's Cooperative