Awa Sy

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Awa Sy by Caurie Microfinance, a partner of Catholic Relief Services in Senegal. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 6 months, Caurie Microfinance, a partner of Catholic Relief Services will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

As a Kiva Fellow, I recently had the opportunity to visit Awa Sy in her home to discuss her Kiva loan. I also attended the monthly village bank meeting for Keur Khaly, which is about a twenty minute drive away from Thies, Senegal, where I am currently working and where Caurie Microfinance, one of Kiva's Senegalese partners, is based.

Awa is full of entrepreneurial energy. She used her loan to buy inventory such as clothing, fabric, shoes, incense, and decorative items. Her profits go to help in the care of her family, including their health and education. She is able to pay school fees for the younger children. One of the older children is pursuing an apprenticeship, and she is able to help him with that.

She aims to keep expanding her business by finding new products to sell. Awa is an officer in her village bank of Keur Khaly. Although being an officer is a voluntary and unpaid position, she has benefited from training that Caurie occasionally provides for its clients. She would love for Caurie to go further and help her find partners among other Caurie clients to trade with in other regions of Senegal, and in neighboring countries, so that she could find new products to introduce to her customers, and find new markets for her existing products.

As we were leaving her house, she presented me with a gift of perfumed beads that women in Senegal often wear around their waist. As a Kiva Fellow, I can't accept gifts, so I gave her a nominal amount of money in exchange. She showed me how to put on the beads, and asked me via my interpreter, the Caurie driver, if I understood when to wear them. When subtleties got lost in translation, she tried a slightly more direct approach: "You need to be married," she said. I told her I didn't precisely understand, but that I think I understood well enough. She thought that was pretty funny.

A couple of weeks later, I attended the village bank meeting, where Awa assisted with the administration of the group's loans. Always on the lookout for new customers, she managed to sell me two bracelets after the meeting.

Below please see a short video of Awa talking about her loan and her ideas, as well as a display of her merchandise and a few photos from the village bank meeting. Although she is speaking in Wolof, the predominant language in Senegal, it's not hard to tell that this is the section of our discussion where she talks about partnerships and trading among regions.

By the way, the bracelets I bought are similar to the ones Awa and her neighbor are wearing in the last photo of the video. They cost about $1 each, but you have to come to Senegal to get them!

To read more stories from the field, visit the Kiva Fellows blog.

About Caurie Microfinance

Based in Thiès, Senegal, Caurie Microfinance is a not-for-profit independent microfinance institution that was launched jointly by Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and Caritas. It operates agencies in three primary regions within Senegal: Thiès, Kolda, and Zinguinchor, with smaller branches in other regions as well. Caurie loans only to women. To meet its objective and serve its customers, Caurie’s methodology is based on the creation of organized, structured and communally governed groups called “village banks.” These groups are made up of an average of 50 self-selected women from local community groups. The banks are based on the principles of participative management and collective guarantees. Learn more about Caurie Microfinance.

Thank you for supporting Awa, Caurie, and Kiva!