Gie Aroka Group

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to the GIE Aroka group, consisting of Pierre Kacobo Senghor, Marie Diatta, Angèle Manga, Hélène Diédhiou, Joseph Senghor by Senegal Ecovillage Microfinance Fund (SEM) in Senegal. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 12 months, Senegal Ecovillage Microfinance Fund (SEM) will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

The Aroka group is in the finishing steps of constructing an inn for visitors. Pierre Senghor, the group's leader, showed me the restaurant he has run since 2000 here in Mlomp, a village of the southern Casamance region of Senegal accessible to cars only by a bumpy dirt road that turns to mud in the rainy season. His restaurant has done well since visitors often come biking through the area from Pointe St-Georges, a well-known tourist spot on the beach several kilometers away, in order to admire the high trees and the traditional local architecture -- and, as he noted, they bring their thirst with them. However, since they inevitably bike back to their hotel, he had the idea to invest in an inn with 4 rooms in order to give vistors the possibility of staying in Mlomp. Most of the building is finished; the latrines still need to be built, and a couple more beds and mattresses need to be set up. Although the inn is technically already open, Pierre says he is working tirelessly to get these details taken care of so that he can compete with other hotels for foreign visitors by offering the same comforts. The inn is called "Le Ronier - Kalahaye," which means "the Fan Palm" in French and Diola.