Community Member’s “Story Changed” and “Hope Restored” by a touch from ACCESS Community program
Florence is 36 years, a single mother of 12 children, resides in the town of Nakaseke and she is among the 50 ladies of ACCESS NANO Microfinance program. She is a person with a physical disability and cannot walk. Her legs are crippled and she can only move with the help of walking sticks, which she got from the hospital.
The father of her children deserted her after seeing that the family had grown bigger and to him it was a burden to meet all the needs. All her children are in school but she finds it so challenging to meet the school needs like buying books, paying school fees and all the necessities for their studies. But ACCESS saved her by supporting a son with school fees and all other school requirements. She stays in a single rented room together with her children. Getting enough to eat is a struggle because she cannot cultivate large enough portions to feed her family. She must take her children over the weekends for labor in order to get food and money for other home basic needs like sugar, soap and school fees for the rest of the children.
She says” I thank ACCESS for helping us the needy, they support my child Dalton in school, gave him everything required for school, introduced us to the income-generating program which provide us with no credit capital. This enabled me to start my business of maize roasting. Before, at times I used to sleep on an empty stomach without eating anything, but these days my family life has completely changed because I can now earn 5000shs (1.5$USD) day as net income. LONG LIVE ACCESS!’’
The Nano microfinance program is a relatively new project introduced through Our Biswas, Kisobooka and other partners. It is aimed at empowering women with interest-free loans so that they can eventually pull out of poverty. Women help fellow women to learn to save, invest and grow their capital in a supportive environment. Once financial management is accomplished, we will then endeavor to set up shared markets and value addition to our beneficiaries.
You can join ACCESS in supporting a microloan which ranges from 10$ USD first loan, 20$USD and 40$USD as the second and third level interest-free loans. Our target is to reach 1 million women in a period of 10 years with interest-free loans and have them share in the open markets across Uganda.