Anastáncia Nhancuava Nhane

Thank you for your loan. It has been disbursed to Anastáncia Nhancuava Nhane by FDM (Fundo De Desenvolvimento Mulher) in Mozambique. We are excited to watch this business grow. Over the next 8 - 14 months, FDM (Fundo De Desenvolvimento Mulher) will be collecting repayments from this entrepreneur and posting progress updates on the Kiva website.

When I arrived today at Anastancia´s beautiful home located in the Albazine area of Maputo with her loan officer this morning, she warmly greeted us at the gate and chided the officer for not coming sooner and visiting more often. She’s quick to offer us coffee and tea, and we sit on her front porch so I can learn a little more about her business and how her loan is progressing.

I have to start off by saying that I have no idea how Anastancia finds enough time in the day. First, she runs a business making a variety of clothing, embroidered products such as towels, linens, and shirts, as well as other items by special request. She has a long list of clients that range from local neighbours to large companies who hire her services, and they come calling from all across Mozambique! She proudly shows me a number of her products, ranging from pot holders to uniforms, and I´m truly impressed by her talent and she explains that for a particular tablecloth she has just finished, she spent as long as 65 minutes carefully crafting each of the 8 embroidered decals. She is using her current loan to stock up on the necessary supplies to fulfil all her orders, and she sends her products off for delivery every two weeks.

Yet, not only does Anastancia run her successful business (something she has been doing since 1994) but she is also a teacher at a primary school in Maputo and is also taking classes at the local university at night! She’s taking courses to augment her resume so she can begin teaching secondary school, and she will complete all her credits this year. Anastancia is 48 years old and her husband is a disabled war veteran. They have five children (not six as reported in the business description) though they also take care of a grandson who lives with them at home. She clearly works incredibly hard, teaching classes in the morning, working on her business in the afternoons, and attending classes at night, but what I think impressed me most about her was her dream for the future. Her most sought after dream, she tells me, is to open her own small primary school for the local children of Albazine. She tells me how important education is to her, and what she wants most is to give back to the community by teaching the local children and aiding in their development. She already has a site picked out and a core curriculum prepared, and she hopes that with her next loan, she can make this dream a reality.

She explains that FDM has changed her life – she’s received 15 loans in the past! They’ve helped her grow her business from a time where she sewed everything by hand, to being able to fulfil all the bulk orders from the well-known clientele she has now with computerized machines. She’s experienced a large amount of success and is currently constructing a large new house, and while she expects her business to continue growing, now she is focused on fulfilling her dream of building a school. I was so amazed by the dedication and hard work demonstrated by Anastancia, and I feel incredibly lucky to have met her today.