Celine Suh

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Celine Suh by GHAPE in Cameroon. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 24 - 30 months, GHAPE will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

I am writing with a progress report on the loan you made to Celine Suh in Cameroon.

My name is Yuan – I’m from the UK - and I am privileged to be the Kiva Fellow working with microfinance NGO GHAPE, based in the country’s North West Province.

I met Celine as she attended her GHAPE centre meeting in a village near where she lives. Once a month she walks half an hour to gather with the other borrowers and make her loan repayments.

Celine is in her thirties and although she wasn’t sure of her exact age, she was keen to tell me all about her children: the 18 year old twins, now studying at technical college; her 15 year old who is at school in the local town; the 9 year old attending the local primary school; and her little one, who is two years and nine months.

She speaks very highly of GHAPE and Kiva - she’s been coming to her local centre meeting for six years now. She is very proud of the progress that her family has made over this time, not least the building of her home, which she says wouldn’t have been possible without GHAPE’s help. She bought a plot of land just four years ago and now has a good-sized house that she is happy with. She has recently spent 200,000 CFA Francs (US$ 500) on a corrugated zinc roof; jolly useful at this time of year, as it rains at least once a day.

I can confirm that her loan repayments are fully up-to-date and she says she hasn’t been having any problems meeting her commitments. Most of her loan has been invested on her farm, where she primarily grows yellow yams, sweet yams and huckleberry. In the picture she is standing by one of her pumpkin plants. She says that, together with her husband, she produces enough to ‘eat plenty’ (of vegetables) as well as sell the surplus at market.

She thanks God that her family are healthy.

I finished by asking her if she wanted to send a message to her Kiva lenders. She told me that she prays everyday that God should provide for them and also help them to help us more.