Borrower Profiles

Mama Shabaan

Water plays a powerful role in our lives. In the village of Mwambalazi, with no infrastructure for water distribution, local villagers rely on water collected from simple bore-wells or murky ponds. Mama Shabaan lives in on a 2 acre farm in a rural village along the south coast of Kenya. She sells her cash crops which include tomatoes and spinach at a local market… Read More »

Fatuma Anawari

Fatuma was born in a Kenyan village, the village she has never left. She attended primary school for two years, but family hardships forced her to drop out in 1982. Eleven years after dropping out of school, she married her first husband. In 1993, that same year, she had her first child. Three years later she had a second child. In 2000, she had another son. Her first child, a son, lives with his father… Read More »

Dzame Mbega Muweye

Dzame Mbega Muweye was born 30th September 1972 in the village of Dengeni, Kenya. She grew up in the village of Mwanguda and received only a few months of formal education in the village primary school. She grew up a devout Christian, which was unusual in a culture of predominantly Muslim and other native African religions… Read More »

Mwanjuma Kupka

Mwanjuma was born in 1969 into a middleclass home. Life was good until age 8, when she began to develop health problems that caused her to drop out of her schooling. She spent 5 years in a hospital until she was recovered enough to go back to school. When she was 16, her mother died and this was a terrible blow to her. Not only had she lost her loving mother, but she lost the only person who had looked after her interests… Read More »

Saumu Omari Bogi

Surrounded by a new environment, Saumu is a happy woman in her early twenties. She breast feeds a very healthy child that she delivered in the year 2000. This is her second child, a daughter. The stock in her kiosk has an air of an income generating business. No wonder she says ‘ni mwanzo’, meaning it is the beginning. Things are going pretty well in her favor… Read More »

Elizabeth Mbevo

Elizabeth was born in 1967 south of Mabafweni village, in the south east coast of Kenya. Between her village and the Kikoneni town lies a deep valley. In the floor of the valley are the remains of a concrete bridge, swept away by heavy rains. To get to the village, one must cross a seasonal river and go up a steep dirt road… Read More »

Chizi Nyawa

Chizi Nyawa was born in 1944 in the village of Mulunguni, near Samburu, outside Mombasa, Kenya. Her mother died when she was very young, hence she was brought up amid suffering and sorrow since her early childhood. At no one time did she share a moment of happiness in her tender age. Because she was a woman, she did not have the opportunity… Read More »

Tatu

Tatu was born in the village of Chigombero. Her dad was a subsistence farmer. The family ate only what they could grow including cassava, citrus, maize and rice. African culture traditionally did not value education for women and as such, Tatu was not sent to school. Only one out of fifty girls were educated at all at that time… Read More »

Masika Mohamed

At the early age of nine, Masika developed eye problems that required her grandfather take her in and care for her. She never went back to live with her parents. She was married, but her husband passed away and she became a widow at a young age. She now lives with her grandparents… Read More »

Saria Family

Halima Salim Saria, mother of four children, has been able to greatly improve the lives of her family since the loan term began. With the loans, she has opened up a small scale shop which has provided enough income to significantly raise the family’s standard of living. She hopes to eventually grow the small business to a larger scale and to expand the family’s household possessions… Read More »