Suma is 28 years old. She lives with her fifty-five-year-old husband and their son. When they first moved to a new region in Nepal, they were empty handed. Starting a new life was very hard and they were only able to eat 1 meal a day. Suma took a tailoring course for a year and after 2 years, managed to open a small tailoring shop.
She heard about the My Business My Freedom Program from a woman near her who had taken a microloan under the program about one and a half years ago. She asked the group leader to include her in their group and after training in small business management and budgeting, received her first loan. The added capital enabled her to increase the stock in her shop, consequently helping her sales increase. She has since paid back her first microloan and has taken a second. With her latest capital funding, she purchased a quality sewing machine and more stock for her shop. She earns 800 rupees [US$7] from the tailoring and 500 rupees [US$4] from a clothes store daily. This has helped to improve her household. As such, she plans to continue and hopefully expand her shop in the future.
Suma hopes to maintain the trust that her group has in her by repaying her microloan on time. As a young woman she is happy to have the resources and capacity to be independent and is grateful to the My Business My Freedom Program for empowering her.
Our Partners
Radha, 16 years old, is one of 5 children in her family. Unfortunately, all of them did not have the opportunity to attend school. The family does not own any land, and their house is built on someone else's property.
Radha's mother works as a wage laborer on other's...
40 SHARES
Ganga Damai joined Shakti Women's group after My Business My Freedom (MBMF) reached her village in Nepal three years ago.
She is 46 years old and has six members in her family. The main source of their family's income before she...
16 SHARES
One of the things we are doing in our microfinance program in the Philippines is getting together through fellowship and meetings of our program's existing members.
Last June 2 marked "Bayan Bayanan Fellowship's" first fellowship meeting. They are the first group formed in their area. One of our existing good payers from...
60 SHARES
Dolores is one of the families we help in the Manila Slum Project, our back to school program in the Philippines. This project aims to assist 200 underprivileged children in Manila slum communities.
When we visited Dolores' home, she was preparing the flowers she would sell in the streets that morning. She...
18 SHARES
Kate and Glenn from Captivating recently visited Manila to check in on our programs in the Philippines.
One of their visits was...
62 SHARES
Aside from providing loans for Filipinos through our microfinance program in the Philippines, one of the things we aim to do is start fellowship groups so we can provide the microfinance beneficiaries the necessary moral and emotional support as they start their small businesses.
We are grateful for this community and...
23 SHARES
