Anye Lawrence Chi

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

Anye Lawrence Chi – 991

Anye Lawrence Chi is a young single father, who has been a GHAPE member for eight years and is now repaying his sixth loan, which was for 300,000 CFA ($600). When I ask what he has used his loan for, he wastes no time in pulling out a small ledger where he has recorded all his purchases:

Two piglets – 30,000 CFA

Firewood – 100,000 CFA

Pig feed – 14,800 CFA

Kernel cake (a nutritional supplement for pigs) – 1,150 CFA

Cotton cake (another supplement) – 1,000 CFA

4 kilos of soy bean (another supplement) – 1,000 CFA

5 kilos of bone meal – 2,500 CFA

4 kilos of milled corn – 4,800 CFA

2 buckets for mixing the feed – 2,000 CFA

Labor to build a new pig fence – 4,000 CFA

Second-hand zinc for roof and wood for pig fence – 25,000 CFA

Rent for farmland – 15,000 CFA

Yam seedlings – 35,000 CFA

Book and pen for record-keeping – 150 CFA

Splitter (a truck used for transporting wood) – 15,000 CFA

Tube and tire for truck repair – 5,000 CFA

2 cups of salt for pig feed – 200 CFA

2nd batch of kernel cake – 1,000 CFA

“I used all my loan,” Lawrence explains, “and now I am turning over the capital to maintain business.” His says that his pigs have been growing well, although one has a problem with its foot, which was broken. He bought a male and female from different families, so that he could “cross” (breed) them, which he is planning to do next month. Alongside the pigs, Lawrence keeps four goats, two of which are now pregnant.

Lawrence uses the manure from his livestock to fertilize his crop farm, where he grows cassava, sweet potatoes, and other staple crops. These crops go to feed the family, while the main source of income is the firewood, where Lawrence puts in all the labor, from splitting, to pushing his truck to town to sell the wood.

Since divorcing his wife, Lawrence has raised his two daughters on his own. The two girls are in Class 5 and Class 3 of primary school. Lawrence pays school fees and manages the household, alongside his elderly mother who was widowed 21 years ago and who is in bad helth.

Although a visibly shy man, Lawrence cannot say enough when asked about the changes GHAPE has brought to his life. “The way I am now free to talk, GHAPE has given me that confidence. I have learned so much. It has also allowed me to start my own business. When I left primary school, I apprenticed with a welder and then I worked with the government highway department, but the economy failed and the government stopped paying. Then I heard about GHAPE. My first year, I started doing firewood; two years late, I added my pigs. Now, I can care for my daughters and my mother.”

Lawrence invested a large amount of his past loan in firewood. To buy his firewood, Lawrence travels to the Alatah Quarter, a rural area outside of Mbengwi. There, he purchased two trucks of firewood for 100,000 CFA ($200 USD). He then paid 40,000 CFA ($80 USD) to have all the wood split so he could take it to the market in Bamenda to sell. After splitting the wood, he can sell each truck for around 150,000 CFA ($300 USD) over a three month period (an $80 USD gain in three months).

Lawrence also purchased two piglets for 15,000 CFA ($30 USD) each. He bought 4 bags of feed for 48,500 CFA ($97 USD) which last for 6 months with two growing piglets. He recently sold one of the pigs for 51,000 CFA ($102 USD) and plans to wait until closer to Christmas to sell the other pig. Lawrence also had four goats. He recently sold two of his young goats for 25,000 CFA ($50 USD) for both. The mother goat is pregnant again and once she gives birth he plans to sell all the baby goats, keeping the mother and one of the goats from the last pregnancy.

Lawrence has two daughters who are eight and ten years old. When he and his wife divorced in 2001, she decided to move to Yaounde--the capital of Cameroon. He was not interested in moving there and did not want to lose his children. He fought to keep them here with him in Bamenda; it was not too difficult for him as it seems his wife was not as interested in raising their children as he was. He now pays their school fees alone; they are in class 3 and class 5 in primary school.

Joining GHAPE has really helped Lawrence. He says, "It has really helped me plenty. People solve problems for people here. I maintain all for my peking [children], pay everything, do everything, they have good health. I am really happy inside GHAPE." He thanks all those people that contributed to his loan this time and hopes he will be on the Kiva site with a new loan again soon.

Go to www.ghape.org to learn more about GHAPE.

Getting closer to paying back his Kiva loan, Anye speaks with us about the progress he has had.

Ashley King-Bischof | KF7

GHAPE | Grounded and Holistic Approach for People's Empowerment