Microfinance helps resourceful woman create hardware store

It all started when Joyce Wafukho, then in her early 30s, spotted a gap in the market in her village in Kenya. "There was no hardware store," explains Mary Ellen Iskenderian, who first visited Ms Wafukho after becoming head of the non-profit organisation Women's World Banking in September 2006.

"After borrowing from family members and scraping some savings together, she started selling nails and screws from a kiosk." She also sold tomatoes, "not your standard DIY stock," laughs Ms Iskenderian.

However, she needed more investment. "Try as she did, she couldn't get a bank loan for love or money," said Ms Iskenderian. But she heard about the Kenyan Women's Financial Trust (KWFT) and borrowed $70 (£35).

The money revolutionised her business. In fact, it did more than that. The loan also improved the prospects of Joyce's three children considerably, enabled her sister to study for a doctorate and created local employment.

Seven years later, Ms Fawukho employs more than 20 people in her hardware business, says Ms Iskenderian, visibly delighted in recounting Joyce's story. "This is one of the most exciting parts," she adds. "The 26th person she has hired is her husband. He had left to work in another village as a policeman.

"Microfinance can help women, but it can also reunite families."

Joyce's story, told during a small event on microfinance at the London Stock Exchange, prompted smiles from investors and academics alike. It may be just one Kenyan woman's story, but it makes a wider point about how small-scale loans can empower women.

The Women's World Bank has a network of microfinance institutions helping women on low incomes. Local organisations can provide support, advice, technology and even space to help nurture a project.

Ms Iskenderian, who spent 17 years at the World Bank's International Finance Corporation (IFC) and has also worked for investment bank Lehman Brothers, talks about how enjoyable it is to meet the women who have secured loans. "What is exciting is you are making a real difference," she says.

Women's World Banking expands the economic assets, participation and power of low-income women entrepreneurs by helping them access key financial services and information ranging from small business loans to savings to health insurance, through a global network of more than 50 microfinance institutions and banks in 29 countries throughout Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. WWB provides direct support to 28 microfinance institutions (MFIs), partners with 24 financial institutions in the Global Network for Banking Innovation, which includes several major commercial banks, and offers support to the Africa Microfinance Network (AFMIN), which consists of 21 country-level microfinance networks in Africa. WWB’s has shown that microfinance services for women have far-reaching impact: they increase family incomes, improve nutrition and health, raise education levels and, ultimately, reduce poverty across entire communities.

 

This story is excerpted from a much longer story entitled Small loans to women make big changes, by Clare Davidson, Business reporter, BBC News, 21 Aug. 2007, also available on the WWB website; it was recently distributed by WUNRN. Read more about Joyce in the March 2006 edition of The Pillar, pp. 18-19, published by the Kenyan Women's Finance Trust (KWFT). See more about WWB clients; more news stories about its work.  Contact: Women's World Banking, 8 West 40th Street, 9th Floor, New York, NY 10018; email. Contact KWFT by email.

 

 


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