Zinunula Lending Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Deborah Kiwanuka
Jane Ssenyondwe
Cotuda Kalwnge
Florence Bukenya
Rose Ssozi by Pearl Microfinance Limited in Uganda. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 6 - 12 months, Pearl Microfinance Limited will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

When I went to visit Deborah’s group, I found out that she was actually in town doing some chores that day. So I spoke to Jane Ssenyondwe, the group’s treasurer. Jane was a bit stressed today as her husband had recently been retrenched and now her family’s finances were being stretched. So this month, for the first time ever in her five years of borrowing from PEARL Microfinance, she was unable to make her full loan repayment. But Jane is sure she will be back on track for next month’s repayment.

Jane’s chicken and cattle business is steady. She now has 200 chicks some of which she is rearing for egg laying and others for meat. She also has two roosters , but her chicks are too young to breed at the moment. The cow Jane bought last year for is growing well and she plans to sell it in a couple of years for around $610.

Jane’s priority at the moment is scraping together enough money to pay her six children’s school fees. It is the beginning of the school term now and so Jane must find close to $500 right away. Life is tough in Uganda, but I have confidence that Jane will find her way.

Jane is pictured on the far left of the photo with two other members of her group.

Rose Sozi is another member of the Zinunala Lending Group that I visted.

When I visited Rose her at her tailoring institute I was truly inspired. Rose started her training school in 2002, with five students on one sewing machine. Now, she has 45 students on her full time, one year program. Rose employs three teachers and has 14 sewing machines. The students are all girls, aged 14 to 25 with an educational level of year 7-10. They each pay $30 for the year-long course.

Rose showed me around her school. It was the term break so there were only a few girls around. There are three classrooms: the ‘baby class’ where girls learn to cut patterns and hand sew on paper; the ‘second class’, where they use the machines on paper and then on fabric, and the ‘senior class’, where there was no paper in sight, just beautifully finished dresses!

I sat in Rose’s living room and chatted with her and her husband Nathan about their vision for her school. The walls were covered with photos from each of their seven children’s weddings and they were more than happy to chat abot them too! Rose’s aim for her tailoring institute is to provide girls with the skills to find work and lift themselves out of poverty. Rose has great plans for her school. She is hoping to buy more sewing machines and then an over-locking machine one day. She also plans to start cookery classes for her students, to give them an extra skill to help them in life.

Rose is pictured in her senior class room with some of her students' work hanging behind her.