Margaret Bosomtwe

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Margaret Bosomtwe by Christian Rural Aid Network in Ghana. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 7 months, Christian Rural Aid Network will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

I visited Margaret today at her shop in Elmina. She reports that she has been able to buy more products for her shop. Her sales have increased and she is now able to help pay her children's school fees.

Margaret is a single mother of 48 with two children. She received formal schooling through senior high. After returning from Nigeria some time ago, she couldn’t find any work, so she helped a friend who owned a general store. Margaret eventually opened her own where she now sells a variety of goods including flashlights, groceries, and plastic bags. With her loan from CRAN, Margaret purchased more goods for the store. Margaret reports that she could have taken out a loan elsewhere, but chose CRAN for its flexibility. Taking out a loan from a bank, she says, is a very cumbersome process. With the loan, Margaret was able to buy the goods in bulk at a lower cost, but a general price increase negated her savings. She thinks, however, that her profits have increased slightly, and she has had no trouble repaying the loan. In fact, she reports that taking out the loan has helped her to plan ahead.

Margaret benefited from the business training sessions that CRAN offers borrowers before their first loan cycle. From the sessions, she learned the importance of using the loan responsibly and managing her money well. She said that this was a good principle to learn and helped her get through several rough times. As an example, she told of when part of her roof collapsed. With her profits, she paid to have the roof fixed, but made sure that she still had enough money to reinvest in her business.

Margaret reports that the loan had a number of positive effects on her life aside from her business. Taking out the loan gave her a sense of accomplishment and her increased profits eased the difficulty of paying for school fees. Previously, she’d have to ask friends of family to borrow some money when she couldn’t pay for them, but she no longer has to do that. Margaret hopes to take out a larger loan in the future.