IRFF Micro Financing Project takes Root in Zambia
IRFF Zambia would like to request more support for this project. If you like to sponsor one family and received the follow up on our program, and the performance from the family that you will sponsor, please donate 150$ to sustain this project by IRFF Zambia. For more details please click the link “Help us to help others”, thank you.
Mackenzie Community is one of the poorest communities in Zambia; Mackenzie is located in Ndola City on the Copperbelt of Zambia and has a population of well over 2,000 people.
IRFF Zambia has been working in this community for more than five years (Reports) and some of the activities carried out in this community by IRFF are:
HIV/AIDS awareness programs ,building of a Community School for the Orphans (due to AIDS), running a Mobile Clinic, Adult Education and now Economic Empowerment through Micro Financing.
Description of the problem and action taken
Our country Zambia is a land locked country and has borders with eight (8) countries, namely Congo DR, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Botswana, Namibia and Angola.
The population of 12,000,000 people and the main income comes from Copper.
With the fall of the Copper price on the world market the economy has been badly affected resulting in non creation of the much needed jobs and dying of many Industries which depend on the Mines for contracts.
UNEMPLOYMENT
Lack of employment has resulted in high levels of poverty, lack of education due to no funds to pay for education, high levels of health problems since many can not afford to pay for medication and some young girls are forced to go into prostitution to earn a living which is very immoral.
SOLUTION
IRFF Zambia has identified the community called Mackenzie in Ndola City, using it as a pilot project to fight poverty by first building a school for the orphans which offers classes from grade 1 to 5 the number of children attending classes at this school is 200.
The school offer training in entrepreneurship so that the unemployed can be self empowered through income generating ventures (Micro Financing), from this income they can be able to support their families and their children’s education and health.
IRFF also provide Adult Education at the same school, we believe education enables one to make good decisions and help one develop for better.
Through all these activities the community is slowly but sure regaining the lost hope for a brighter future.
The main objective of the Micro Financing project is to help up lift the standard of living of the people in this community and this can only be done if they are economically empowered, most of the families in this community are so poor due to lack of employment and many are uneducated.
Originally this Micro Financing Project was to provide soft loans for 10 people only, but when we saw the high demand for financial assistance to start up small businesses by the community, we had no choice but to increase the number of beneficiaries to 23.
The program started with a 7 days Entrepreneurship Training for the 23 beneficiaries; from the 27th of May 2003 to 2nd June 2003.The training covered the following topics:
- Starting a business
- Business planning
- Market research
- Bookkeeping and Record keeping
- Sourcing of products
- Stock control
- HIV/AIDS awareness
As can be seen from the attached photos all the beneficiaries are mothers with 3 to 6 children to take care of, we picked mothers because we believe they are always there for the family, therefore once they are economically empowered the whole family stand to benefit.
The response was very good and the beneficiaries were strongly advised to be very dedicated in repayment of the soft loans so that the project can benefit as many people as possible.
The soft loans given out is to be paid back in full within 5 months at the rate of 20 % of the total soft loan per month starting from July 2003, the month of June 2003 is for settling down and IRFF has helped each beneficiary to open a Bank Account which will also help a great deal in checking on the performance of each beneficiary.
IRFF members of staff will be monitoring each and every beneficiary to check on their performance and hold meetings twice in a month to check on progress, this will help detect problems as quickly as possible so that solutions are provided in good time before it is too late.
The objective of IRFF Zambia in this project is to eventually provide Financial Relief to as many poor people as possible through this Micro Financing Project, for us this is the beginning of great work of economic empowerment for the poor in our society.
IRFF Zambia would like to request more support for this project. If you like to sponsor one family and received the follow up on our program, and the performance from the family that you will sponsor, please donate
Many thanks to all the sponsors, for making the dream for many a needy people of Mackenzie community come true and have hope for a brighter future.
Best regards,
NICHOLAS CHISHA
Director IRFF ZAMBIA.
E-mail:
chishanco@zamtel.zm
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (c) 2003 IRFF Europe
Luxembourg@irff-europe.org