Helena Owusu

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Helena Owusu by Sinapi Aba Trust (SAT) in Ghana. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 8 months, Sinapi Aba Trust (SAT) will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

I met Helena at her shop at a busy crossroads in Dunkwa. After we exchanged introductions, I asked Helena how her children were doing. She told me that all the children are all doing very well. Just two of her children are still in senior high school, and the others have completed school and are working.

Helena also gave me a progress report on her business selling apples, vegetables, maize and other cereals and grains. With this recent loan, Helena was able to replenish her stock of vegetables, apples and maize. She told me with pride in her voice about how this loan also helped her to start a new apple stand in another location. She goes on Tuesdays to buy vegetables and apples for the week, and Wednesday to buy maize. Before she began taking out loans with Sinapi Aba Trust (SAT), she was only able to buy two boxes of maize at a time. Now on her fifth loan with SAT, she is able to buy ten boxes at a time---and 20 boxes of apples! Being able to buy in bulk is very advantageous. It means fewer trips to fill the demand, and it is a hedge against the rapidly rising prices. Since she began borrowing from SAT, Helena has quadrupled her income, from 25 to 100 cedis per week. The profits from this most recent loan went to pay for her children’s school fees and books, with the remainder reinvested in her business.

Helena said that since she has been receiving loans from SAT, she has been better able to manage her household expenses. Now that the business has prospered, the added income has allowed her to better support her family. She hopes to take out another loan when this one has been repaid and plans to go to the capital city of Accra to buy apples in bulk. She also dreams of growing her business so that she can save more money to send her children through university. Once that is done, Theresa says she wants to build a house for her family with the profits from her business. Thanks to your generosity, Theresa is that much closer towards fulfilling these dreams!