Kara Group

These women are Aminata Kargbo and Fatmata Kanu. They have named their group Kara. They are local entrepreneurs in the town of Makeni. Most recently; each of them in the group received a loan of Le 500,000. That loan was a great help to members of this group. It enabled them to expand their businesses, make more profit, and consequently improve their living conditions. Having repaid their last loan successfully, they have requested a loan of Le 800,000.

Aminata (right) is the leader of the group. She is forty-eight years of age. She was born in Makeni, in northern Sierra Leone. She is married and her husband is a working professional. They have four children – one is in college, and the three are in Junior Secondary School. Aminata sells palm-oil (the most popular cooking oil) and “gara lappers” (locally dyed cloth). She has been in the business for more than twenty years now.

With this new loan, Aminata will expand her business. She will invest part of the money in her "gara" business and part in the palm-oil business. She will buy at least three lengths of white cotton (about thirty yards of white cotton make a length). A length costs Le 110,000. She will also use some of the money to buy ink, powder, soda and other chemicals used in dyeing the cloth. She will also have to pay workers who design some intricate patterns on the white cotton. All of the material she needs for making the "gara" she can purchase within Makeni town; for the palm-oil, she will have to travel to a village called Masingbin to buy it at a reasonable cost. She will need to pay a fare of Le 10,000 to travel to Masingbin. There, a “barter” (five gallons) of palm-oil costs Le 60,000.

So far, Aminata faces no major challenge in her business worth noting. Business is going on fine for her. She loves doing her business and would like to see it grow as it is her only source of survival.




About Group Loans
In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a group of individuals bound by a group guarantee. Under this arrangement, each member of the group supports one another and is responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members if someone is delinquent or defaults. Learn more

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