Microcredit is slowly helping to transform Comfort Azelima's life. She used to roast corn and plantain at a local market in Ghana's second largest city, Kumasi. But the work was hard and she earned very little. So she decided to take up tie and dye and batik.
After a two-year apprenticeship with her sister in the Ghanaian capital Accra, Comfort returned to Kumasi and set up a business in her home. Four years later, she realised that she needed more capital to expand her business. That's when she heard about a local microcredit organisation, the Sinapi Aba Trust, a Christian non-profit organisation. Sinapi charges its customers between 18 and 35 percent interest per year, which is less than commercial banks.
Comfort received her first microloan of about 100 euros in 2006. She used the money to purchase more raw materials such as chemicals and powders. Comfort easily managed to repay the loan within six months and has since received five more loans. The latest one was worth nearly 200 euros.
Comfort, like many other of Sinapi's clients, would need up to ten years of microloans before she could wean herself off the Trust. But she believes she now has sufficient collateral to apply for a bigger loan from a commercial bank. Eventually she hopes to be able to purchase a plot of land and expand her business even further.
Click here for an account of how the video came about.
This video portrait is part of a series about small businesses that have received microcredit. The eight reports have been produced for Radio Netherlands Worldwide’s series “Microfinance – who profits?” that was launched on 25 January 2010 at a conference at the Peace Palace in The Hague.
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Very improved version. offshore development
Comfort creates lovely designs on the cloth. She is hardworking and wise, and has made wise investments by learning new trade, unlike Bidi from India. Microcredit is for people like Comfort.I am impressed by her skills.
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