Microloan Mercy – Bennett – Merceline 984070 – Milestone 5

A loan of $200 helped to purchase more stock of wheat flour, maize flour, sugar, and rice.

The Mercy Foundation funded a microloan to Merceline, a retail store owner in Kenya.

Merceline's story

Merceline is a married woman with three children, all of whom attend school. She lives at her own house that has electricity but no piped water. Her greatest monthly expenses are food for the family and school fees.

For the past five years, she has operated a retail shop business, selling to other residents. She faces the major challenge of stiff competition in her business. She dreams of opening another shop outlet in the future.

With the loan that she requested of KES 20,000, she wants to purchase more stock of wheat flour, maize flour, sugar and rice. She decided to join Yehu to access loans to boost her business. With a greater inventory, Merceline will be able to sell more products, and generate more profits.

So, this microloan could be a very helpful step on Merceline’s journey to get her business to become completely financially self-sufficient. In Kenya, where Merceline lives and operates her business, the average annual income is only $1,800. So, a microloan of even just $200 can be extremely helpful for entrepreneurs in the area.

Microloan Partner

The field partner for this microloan is the Yehu Microfinance Trust. The Yehu Microfinance Trust was founded in 1998 as a project of CHOICE Humanitarian Kenya. In July 2007, Yehu became a separate entity from CHOICE and was registered as a trust. Since then, Yehu has expanded to cover over half of Kenya’s 13 coastal districts.

The Mercy Foundation has successfully funded this loan to Merceline! It was able to do this with the help of Yehu Microfinance Trust. Now Merceline can go and buy all of the supplies that she needs to boost her inventory. This will make her store more robust, and it can help her to expand her customer base and her profits.

The Mercy Foundation will not take any interest on this microloan. Instead the loan is purely a humanitarian offering designed to help an entrepreneur in need. However, the local field partner may take interest payment as a way to stay economically feasible. This loan has successfully been funded to the entrepreneur who needed it. However, there are still countless entrepreneurs in underserved nations who need access to capital. If you would like to fund an entrepreneur in need, please feel free to visit Kiva.org today!

Notes

1. This article is based on https://www.kiva.org/lend/984070

Mercy Foundation comes to the aid of entrepreneurs in need of capital by issuing microloans funded by donations of underutilized real estate. For more on its mission to aid micro-entrepreneurs, visit this website.