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Entrepreneur Profiles

Grace Ayaa is a mother of four who lives in Kulambiro, Uganda. She is of the Acholi tribe and lived in the Northern districts of Kitgum before the civil war forced her to leave her home. She cares for 13 children, 7 of whom are not her own but orphans of the civil war, and now adopted into her family.

Grace tried to support herself and her family making peanut butter using a mortar and pestle. The process was so slow, and batch of produce so small, that it was very difficult to make the peanut butter fast enough to earn enough money to cover living costs for her and her family.

Grace knew she had to change her processes for her business to be successful, so she saved enough money to purchase a processing machine, no longer grinding with a mortar and pestle. With her new investment she was able to make much larger batches of peanut butter more quickly than before, but she had no way of storing her peanut butter and therefore could not make more until her current batch had sold.

Grace took a loan of $475 through Kiva, administered by Life in Africa, a Kiva Field Partner. Grace intended to spend 50% of her loan to purchase a refrigerator to store the larger batches of peanut butter, 25% on packing materials and an additional 25% as working capital for her business.

Within six months Grace had employed an additional person to help her with her business. She was also able to save enough money with her increased profits to acquire a small piece of land, so that she could better care for her children who were growing up quickly.

Grace has become an example in her community of a successful woman, despite the difficulties she has faced. Grace is no longer forced to decide which children she can send to school each semester as she can afford to send them all, and she is now building a home for her family on the land she was able to purchase.


Angel Asenov is 30 year old young man living in Sliven, Bulgaria, where he had worked in a bicycle repair store for 15 years. Like many young men he dreamed of running his own business, but every one of the six banks in Sliven refused him a loan to start his own bicycle repair store. Angel is a member of the Roma minority, commonly known as gypsies, and supports his younger brother and mother who live with him in a 2 bedroom concrete house without running water.

Angel received a loan through Kiva, administered by REDC, a Kiva Field Partner. Angel spent the $850 loan on equipment he needed to buy (welding tools, wrenches, screwdrivers, saws, hammers and some bike-specific tools), inventory for the store (rubber, spare parts) and a modest renovation on the part of his house he converted into a shop front.

The first time Angel made a payment on his loan he brought chocolates to the REDC office to express his gratitude for making his dream a reality. To advertise his new business he organized a bike race within his community, which 100 children attended. When the cold months came Angel recongized that he could do much more with his welding tools than just fixing bikes, and he became the metalworking man-about-town.

Angel fully repaid his loan within 12 months, and with his success he has been able to hire his brother part-time, perform some simple renovations on their home and invest in his supplemental metalworking business. Angel's success - as a Roma - was so astounding to the public that his story made the Bulgarian national paper. Congratulations Angel!