Diana Gbesiagbe

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Diana Gbesiagbe by Christian Rural Aid Network (CRAN) in Ghana. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the 7 months of this loan, Christian Rural Aid Network (CRAN) will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

Diana is a cheerful young lady with a lot of energy, which is a good thing, because she also works hard as a fish vendor in her coastal fishing town. Diana is engaged to a secondary school teacher whom she met in the neighborhood where she works. She has been in the fish vending business for the past eight years, and before that she was making and selling batiks. She says, however, that fish vending is more profitable overall. Diana used this last loan to buy fish from the fishermen in her town. They return from their nightly fishing trips early in the morning, and Diana is there to meet them on the beach. With her 500 cedi loan, Diana was able to buy three large baskets of fish. She takes the fish home and smokes them on wire racks like the one pictured above that rest on a mud brick oven. The fish can take up to a whole day to smoke on one side. The fire is stoked the next morning and the fish are turned over to smoke the second side. Diana makes from 30-40 cedis per week from her fish sales, and this is used to pay household bills, buy food, and to reinvest in the business by replenishing her fish stock. During this loan cycle, Diana also made enough profit to buy new wire racks and the firewood she needs to smoke the fish. She has also been able to make all her loan installments on time.

Diana tells me that before borrowing from Christian Rural Aid Network (CRAN), she had very little capital and therefore could only buy a little fish at a time, and then accordingly, her profits were very small. Diana says she knows her business and is good at it, but that without the initial capital, it is hard to make much profit. Through the loan you have so generously given, Diana has been able to scale up her business, and her profits. Even though the local economy is slow right now, Diana says it is easier for her to manage her finances than it was before she joined CRAN as a loan client. Diana hopes to grow her business even more, and eventually hire others to help her with it. She also dreams of buying a piece of land, building a big house and renting out living space to others. This is something that would not even have been a remote possibility before becoming a loan client with CRAN. Because Diana has seen her profits grow with each CRAN loan, she believes in the possibilities of the future. Thank you for your part in making that future look bright!

About Christian Rural Aid Network:

Christian Rural Aid Network is a non-governmental, rural development organization established in 1993 with the aim of promoting an improvement in the quality of life and the socio-economic development of the rural poor in Ghana. Based in Cape Coast and operating in three regions and seven different districts, CRAN’s work is based on the values of Christian motivation and obligation towards the development of the individual as a whole, employing and promoting “demand-led” or “self-help” strategies for community development and rural poverty reduction. CRAN’s mission is to “work towards the improvement in the quality of life of the rural poor, the disadvantaged and the marginalized populations and communities in a holistic fashion (physically, socially, economically and spiritually), with emphasis on the right of children to quality formal education, in addition to the economic and social empowerment of women in a professional and qualitative manner”. To learn more about CRAN, click here. To browse through profiles of recent CRAN loan applicants and to make a loan to another worthy CRAN loan client, click here.

Diana has two children and is not married. She lives with her parents in their own house. Her father is a fisherman.

She sells smoked fish in the streets of Elmina. This business is very widespread in Elmina, everything depends heavily on the fishing industry. So there are many other people, she is in competition with. From May until July, it is very difficult to get fish. This time is called ‘lane-season’. That is one reason, why Diana decided to take a microloan from the Christian Rural Aid Network (CRAN). She uses the loan to buy more stock.

That helped Diana to increase her income. Now she is able to buy fish and equipment, like firewood, without credit and interests.

Diana hopes to be able to buy some land and build her own house. She wants to thank every lender very much, for giving her the chance to improve her business, which helps her to fulfill her dreams step by step.

About Christian Rural Aid Network:

Christian Rural Aid Network is a non-governmental, rural development organization established in 1993 with the aim of promoting an improvement in the quality of life and the socio-economic development of the rural poor in Ghana. Based in Cape Coast and operating in three regions and seven different districts, CRAN’s work is based on the values of Christian motivation and obligation towards the development of the individual as a whole, employing and promoting “demand-led” or “self-help” strategies for community development and rural poverty reduction. CRAN’s mission is to “work towards the improvement in the quality of life of the rural poor, the disadvantaged and the marginalized populations and communities in a holistic fashion (physically, socially, economically and spiritually), with emphasis on the right of children to quality formal education, in addition to the economic and social empowerment of women in a professional and qualitative manner”. To learn more about CRAN, click here. To browse through profiles of recent CRAN loan applicants and to make a loan to another worthy CRAN loan client, click here.