Diouma Ba

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Diouma Ba 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 in Senegal, I recently had the opportunity to visit Diouma at her stand in the market to talk about her business.

She buys and sells vegetables in the marketplace, and has had a lot of success in her business. Everything is going well – she works, she makes a profit, she pays back her loan. She thanks God and everyone around her, as well as everyone who brought the concept of microfinance to Senegal, and everyone who helped her get her loan.

With her profits, she’s been able to help her husband with the household expenses and the care of their children.

She says what she’d really like, in addition to the loan program, is if there could be medical services as well – if a doctor could be brought around, along with the loan officer, to take care of health needs. Sometimes, she says, there is depression, or physical maladies, but still, you have to work. Money takes care of so many problems, she says.

Below is a short video of Diouma at her table in the marketplace, talking about all of this in Wolof, the dominant language in Senegal.

Please note that Diouma is not delinquent on her loan. An administrative error resulted in many of Caurie’s loans appearing as delinquent on the site. The reality is that all of Caurie’s loans that are currently posted on the Kiva website have a fixed term of six months with a single payment at the end, as noted in the loan description. Diouma is on schedule to pay back her loan in full on time very shortly, and this should get sorted out on the lender side soon. Apologies for any confusion.

To read more Kiva Fellow stories from Senegal, check out 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 Diouma, Kiva, and Caurie!