$50 Loan Goes A Long Way

Ramulati Kibirige, who is raising nine children, took a $50 loan and turned it into a stack of pastry turnovers for sale. Other poor women like her have started tailor shops, beauty salons and grocery stands.

"Because I am working, we are happy in our home, our children are happy," said Kibirige, 32, who cares for her two children plus seven orphaned when her sister died of AIDS. The loan enabled her to start buying flour, sugar, peas and cooking oil in bulk, rather than a bit at a time. Now, she makes bigger profits, about $34 a month, and no longer has to rely on her often-absent husband.

President Clinton, on a six-nation tour of Africa, will visit the small-loan project Tuesday in this rundown village, which sits near the source of the Nile and 50 miles east of Kampala, the capital.

Promoting Africa's economic potential, he will meet 60 women who formed a lending group sponsored by the Foundation for International Community Assistance Banking (FINCA) on the Poor. Hillary Rodham Clinton visited the project last year.

Since the group, based in Washington, began working in Uganda in 1992, it has lent up to $150 each to women, targeting the neediest. About 60 percent are single and 75 percent are caring for orphans, most whose parents died of AIDS.

FINCA has lost only $875 out of $4.57 million in loans, partly funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, said Michael McCord, the foundation's manager for Africa. Interest charges of 3 percent per month are used to make more loans.

"It is not unusual for me to go out and spend $50 for a dinner in Kampala," he said. "These women can take $50 and change their lives."

Before getting their first loans, the women fretted about how to feed their children and often got on their knees to beg money from their husbands.

"When they get a loan, it opens up the future to them," McCord said. "They can see themselves making more money. They can see more opportunities for themselves."

They learn how to save money, too. "It is something that is really for them. Their husband doesn't have it, their kids can't have it, their families can't have it; it's theirs, and it protects their future," McCord said.

Salama Ibrahim used her loan to add services at her rented hair salon, now straightening and setting hair in addition to doing elegant, braided extensions.

The 28-year-old is able to pay school fees for her two children, abandoned by their father, and is saving $5 a week toward building her own salon.

"Loans have made our women stronger," she said. "They've made a big, big improvement in our lives."

By Karin Davies
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