Ambe Anna Nchang

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Ambe Anna Nchang by GHAPE in Cameroon. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 18 - 18 months, GHAPE will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Entrepreneur: Ambe Anna Nchang

Location: Ndamukong Street Nkwen Bamenda North west Province

Loan Amount: $800

She received the loan of $800 on April 17, 2007. The availability of investment capital brought happiness to the family. She is very excited and appreciative. She will be reporting concrete realization of her business plan in the days ahead. The first installment repayment of her loan is due August 2007.

Anna is happy with this laon.Her business is moving .The problem she had was that her child got pregnant and the boy who inprenated this child was unable to sponsor the pregancy.However due to the gain she has been making from the business help her to do all the things.However the business is moving but with high prices in material.

Anna Nchang jumpstarted a multitude of businesses with her Kiva loan – most met disaster, initially – and from one point-of-view this has multiplied her tribulations. Not from hers. She’s overcoming her many troubles and finding nuggets of success – and important lessons – in the coals of failed ventures. Amazingly, today she is keeping up with payments and has $50 set aside each month for taking care of seven on her own.

Anna’s main activity was selling clothes. She quickly expanded to other areas. With her 400,000 CFA Kiva loan ($800) she started out by:

*Buying a sewing machine for 50,000 CFA.

*Purchasing three bails of clothing at 70,000 CFA each – half her loan. Bails are bound piles of “imported goods from Europe” a.k.a. recycled clothes. Savvy investors like Anna pick through for choice selections. She auctions the leftovers, and takes the cream-of-the-crop to sell on the street.

*Starting a pepper farm, spending 20,000 CFA on hot pepper seed.

*30,000 CFA on two piglets to grow fat and breed.

*25,000 CFA on a fence for the pigs.

*26,000 CFA on 2 bags of feed for 30 chicks (bought at 1200 CFA, or $3 each).

*Getting into the fish business, snagging a carton of fresh fish for 21,000 CFA, and 5000 CFA of groundnut oil to fry the 300 fish.

Then the mixed bag of results (in reverse order):

*The fish was the good news. “It takes me four hours to fry half the fish,” says Anna. “In two days, I a sell a carton in four off-license bars in this area – and my gain is 5-6,000 CFA.” She says this business is her most profitable, and she is sticking with it.

*The chicks were stolen. “Thieves attacked and took them all,” says Anna. She bought 20 more chicks, but sold them at an undersized price of just under $4 each.

*The pigs didn’t fare so well, either. One female pig grew fine, but the male was sold as a net loss (after spending on feed) for 15,000 CFA – the same she paid for it. Also, she tried to breed the female three times, spending 4000 CFA ($10) per stud attempt to no avail. Because payment is not contingent on successful fertilization, she was out 12,000 CFA, and eventually sold the less-than-full-sized porker for 40,000.

*Her tenant’s fowls destroyed the pepper farm. “We don’t talk now,” she says of the neighbors, who moved out soon after the incident. She has since replanted using another 16,000 CFA of the loan fund.

*The clothes also ended in a loss. Ndamukong St. is the main road to sell clothes, but in the end, “I had so many clothes left over,” says Anna. “With rent and after selling off the rest of the clothes in auction, I lost 26,000 CFA.”

*And the sewing machine she bought for her main clothing business? It didn’t get much use, as she sold it back at the same price so she wouldn’t fall behind on loan repayments.

Not exactly the story of great success. But consider that during the interview, she proudly took us straight to the market to where she buys her fish every week. She dumped out a box of near-frozen fish and started her newfound core work, prepping mackerel and tossing them into a bucket. “When people drink, they have to eat,” she acknowledges. So she is staying with the staple fish fry routine. And despite the initial net losses, her second attempts with pigs, pepper farm and fowl are working out for her. Clothes and sewing have gone by the wayside. “It’s not a problem to take care of the family,” she says despite being on her own after separating from her husband four years ago. (While he does add money for school fees, she often has to make up the difference.)

To top it off, two new additions to the family were fully paid for by Anna: her daughter and niece, respectively, gave birth to a girl and a boy this past year. Each birth cost over 15,000 CFA, and her profits paid for the hospital bills.

“I will take a loan again when I repay this one,” says Anna, determined. “Now I understand [what works]. I will put it in a good place. I have another pig I can sell for 100,000 CFA in five months, and the peppers grow now.” And the possibility of stolen fowl? Anna has a solution: “I have a lock now.”