Aida

Dakar, Senegal

100% repaid

Entrepreneur

Name

Aida

Member since

June 2010

On-time repayments

15 installments  •  60%

About Me

My name is Aida Sow. I live in the Sacré Coeur 3 neighborhood of Dakar with my husband and my two children. I do business to help my husband who doesn’t make much money. With the difficulties of our country, I must work hard for the future of my children and my relatives. I work hard so my children do not miss out on education like their mother. I continued my education until the third year of highschool. I stopped because my parents couldn't afford to keep me in school. Then I went to work as a housework assistant, I was payed 40,000 CFA (roughly $80) each month. I saved until I had about 300,000CFA (roughly $600), then I started my own business to secure a better future.

My Business

I used to sell clothing but the selling on credit didn't work well, people would take clothing and not pay me, that’s why I switched to selling foods [which people can afford to pay up front]. I sell dried fish, smoked fish, palm oil, bissap [type of hibiscus flower used to make a sweet drink and flavor cooking in West Africa], honey, le pain de singe (fruit of the baobab tree) and locally produced peanut butter. With foods, I’ve had success. But in life, you have expenses, that’s why I am asking for a loan to continue my activities. The first loan that I received, it was on 12/12/2008 from Microcred, a loan of 400,000CFA (roughly $800) that I payed back in 8 months. Each month, I paid an installment 50,000CFA ($100). They had told me to pay it back within a year, but I did it in 8 months. I worked well with this loan – it gave me much more profit and gave me the ability to afford much more, like school for my children.

Loan Proposal

I will increase my offerings to sell with my loan from Zidisha. If I had more money, I’d buy more inventory and I would make much more. The products I sell (palm oil, smoked fish, honey, etc…), are those that everyone needs. People buy these products each day, they need them, they are necessities in the Senegalese diet.

Show original Français  

About Me

My name is Aida Sow. I live in the Sacré Coeur 3 neighborhood of Dakar with my husband and my two children. I do business to help my husband who doesn’t make much money. With the difficulties of our country, I must work hard for my children and my parents. I must work hard so my children do not miss out on education like their mother.

I continued my education until the third year of highschool. I stopped because my parents did not have the means (to continue my education). After, I did housework, I was payed 40,000 CFA (roughly $80) each month. I saved until I had about 300,000CFA (roughly $600) and I started my own business to ensure my future.

(this is a translation of the original French below)

Moi, je m’appelle Aida Sow. J’habite a Sacre Coeur 3 à Dakar avec mon mari et mes deux enfants. Je fait la commerce pour aider mon mari qui ne gagne pas beaucoup. Avec les difficultés qui est dans notre pays il faut que travaille beaucoup pour l’avenir de mes enfants et de mes parents. Je me batte pour que mes enfants ne manquent pas l’éducation comme leur mama.

J’ai fait l’ecole jusqu’a la troisième. J’ai arreté parce que mes parents n’avaient pas les moyennes. Apres, j’ai fait le ménage, on me payait 40,000 par mois. Je les rassamblé jusqu’a une somme de 300,000CFA et je démarré mon commerce pour assurer l’avenir.

My Business

My name is Aida Sow. I live in the Sacré Coeur 3 neighborhood of Dakar with my husband and my two children. I do business to help my husband who doesn’t make much money. With the difficulties of our country, I must work hard for my children and my parents. I must work hard so my children do not miss out on education like their mother.

I continued my education until the third year of highschool. I stopped because my parents did not have the means (to continue my education). After, I did housework, I was payed 40,000 CFA (roughly $80) each month. I saved until I had about 300,000CFA (roughly $600) and I started my own business to ensure my future.

I sold clothing but had issues with my clients, people would buy clothing on credit and not pay me, that’s why I switched to selling foods. I sell dried fish, smoked fish, palm oil, bissap (local fruit), honey, le pain de singe (local fruit), peanut pasta. With foods, I’ve had success. But in life, you have expenses, that’s why I am asking for a Zidisha loan to continue my activities.

The first loan that I received, it was on 12/12/2008 from Microcred, a loan of 400,000CFA (roughly $800) that I payed back. Each month, I payed 50,000CFA ($100) to pay back my loan. They told me to pay it back within a year, but I did it in 8 months. I worked well with this loan – it gave me much more profit and gave me the ability to afford much more, like school for my children.

(this is a translation of the original French below)

Moi, je m’appelle Aida Sow. J’habite a Sacre Coeur 3 à Dakar avec mon mari et mes deux enfants. Je fait la commerce pour aider mon mari qui ne gagne pas beaucoup. Avec les difficultés qui est dans notre pays il faut que travaille beaucoup pour l’avenir de mes enfants et de mes parents. Je me batte pour que mes enfants ne manquent pas l’éducation comme leur mama.

J’ai fait l’ecole jusqu’a la troisième. J’ai arreté parce que mes parents n’avaient pas les moyennes. Apres, j’ai fait le ménage, on me payait 40,000 par mois. Je les rassamblé jusqu’a une somme de 300,000CFA et je démarré mon commerce pour assurer l’avenir.

J’ai vendu des habits comme ca ne marchait pas avec les credit, les gens prends des habits et ils ne me payent pas, c’est pourquoi j’ai change pour vendre des denrés alimentaires. Moi je vends du poisson sec, le poisson fumés, l’huile de palme, le bissap, le miel, le pain de singe, la pate d’arrachide. Avec des denrés, j’avais du succès. Mais, avec la vie des fois tu fais les dépenses c’est pourquoi je demande le prêt pour continuer les activités.

Le premier prêt que j’ai recu, c’était le 12/12/2008 de Microcred, un prêt de 400,000CFA que j’ai payé dans 8 mois. Chaque mois, je versé 50,000CFA par mois. On m’avait dit de le payer dans un an, mais je l’ai payé dans 8 mois. J’ai travaillé bien avec ce prêt parce que j’avais beaucoup plus de bénéfices et j’avais la capacité de fais beaucoup plus de choses comme l’école de mes enfants.

Loan Proposal

I will increase my offerings to sell with my loan from Zidisha. If I had more money, I’d buy many products (to sell) and I would make much more. The products I sell (palm oil, smoked salmon, honey, etc…), are those that everyone needs. People buy these products each day, they need them, they are necessities in the Senegalese diet.

(this is a translation of the French below)

Je vais faire beaucoup de stock pour vendre avec mon prêt de Zidisha. Si j’avais beaucoup d’argent et j’achete beaucoup de produits, je gagne beaucoup plus. Avec les produits que j’achete (l’huile de palme, poisson fumés, le miel, etc..), tous le monde a besoin. Parce que les gens achetent chaque jours ces produits, ils les ont besoins, on les prepares chaque jour.

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Loan Info

Project Type

Classic Loan

Disbursed amount

$765.00

Date disbursed

Sep 15, 2010

Repayment status

On Time

Projected term

26 months

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Julia Kurnia

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Ask Aida a question about this project, share news and photos of your own, or send a simple note of thanks or inspiration.

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  • Julia Kurnia    Feb 17, 2014

    test 10:48

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  • Aida    Dec 11, 2012

    Dear Lenders,
    I would like to change my monthly loan repayments to 10.000CFA. Recently, my restaurant has struggled. I used to have a very reliable clientele coming from a big office building near my home, over 100 regular clients. Unfortunately, the company moved offices and I lost all that business. On top of this issue, I am paying my children's school fees which are very expensive, 57.000CFA each month for the two of them. With a reduced monthly repayment amount I will more easily be able to get back on track. Once I repay this loan I will go back to seafood business because my restaurant is slowing down after losing those clients that I mentioned.
    Thank you for understanding.
    This message was dictated by Aida and typed by Michael Riley, Zidisha Client Relations Manager

    Translated by     Show original

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  • SEGant    May 31, 2012

    I visited Aida on May 30th and was very happy to see that her restaurant is enjoying a great deal of success in the neighborhood. Despite her previous health issues Mme Sow has made a courageous recovery, adding a small addition onto her house where she serves lunch and dinner. Her restaurant, "Le Plat du Jour," is very popular among her neighbors, and I had the opportunity to chatting with two other Sacre Coeur residents while I enjoyed the plate of fish, couscous and rice that she absolutely insisted I accept. She explained that the restaurant is more popular during the evening than at lunchtime, and later during the day she serves beignets, homemade juices, and fish or meat along with rice.

    Her future ambitions include buying more chairs and tables and eventually expanding her seating area. She has only been open for one month but the amount of traffic she has already is encouraging.

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  • Aida    May 30, 2012

    I am very happy that I can host a restaurant in my home. I have started selling about a month ago. I sincerely thank you. I am ready to start reimbursing the loan to have a second one so I can expend the restaurant.

    Translated by     Show original

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  • Julia Kurnia    Mar 19, 2012

    Dear all,

    The outpouring of generosity sparked by Madame Sow's story amazed all of us. Not only did many lenders forgive her loan outright, but one donated some of her lender credit balance to cover the amount remaining to repay, and another made a separate donation which I disbursed to Madame Sow last night. She was so happy, I've never seen anything like it - saying "God bless them" over and over...

    Madame Sow opted to apply for a smaller loan this time - just what she needs to restart her original business activity of long-distance trade in dried seafood from the Casamance region of southern Senegal. With luck this has the potential to provide a steady income that is much more substantial than her current millet porridge sales.

    Madame Sow has allowed her five-year-old Ndeye Marie, who seems to have quite an artistic talent, to cover the walls of her otherwise spotless home with her creations: idyllic scenes featuring dozens of traditional mud huts in the typical Casamance style, sketched out boldly with bits of charcoal from the stove. Madame Sow explained that Ndeye Marie still remembers traveling with her to the Casamance to buy seafood in the days before Madame Sow's illness. The future looks bright for the family to return to that life again.

    Words can't convey how thankful Madame Sow is for your support. More than the money itself, the fact that individuals on the other side of the world took an interest in her life and reached out to help seemed to make an enormous impression on her. She had not expected anything like this.

    Thanks to all of you,

    Julia Kurnia, Director Zidisha Inc.

    P.S. Madame Sow requested to remove her picture due to fears that her photo could be copied and misused on the Internet. To address her concern, we replaced her profile photo with the current one depicting seafood of the type she intends to trade with her new loan.

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  • Aida    Mar 10, 2012

    Hello Zidisha! Thanks God I am doing well. I promise I will pay back the loan because I really must pay. It is not my money, I only borrowed it to work. I thank you very much

    Translated by     Show original

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  • Julia Kurnia    Mar 10, 2012

    Dear lenders,

    I was in Dakar, Senegal this weekend, and took advantage of the occasion to visit Aida Sow, whose loan you participated in funding.

    At the time you funded her loan, Madame Sow was a robust young mother, full of ambition for the future of her two preschool-aged children, Ndeye Marie and Ousseynou. She raised $765 to grow her small but flourishing business of marketing seafood products from southern Senegal in the capital city of Dakar. Soon thereafter, she began experiencing stomach pain and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She underwent surgery to have the tumor removed, and spent months recovering while drawing down all her financial resources to pay for her medical costs.

    Today, thankfully, she has recovered physically, but not financially. She lives alone in a tiny apartment with her two children. Lacking the capital to return to her former long-distance trading business, she manages to feed her small family by selling millet porridge: each morning she purchases two kilograms of raw millet for $1.19 and pays 20 cents to have it ground at the local mill. She cooks this into a porridge which she sells to passersby each evening. If the entire bowl of porridge is sold she earns $2.97 in gross revenue, leaving an income of $1.58 per day. She uses approximately half of this to buy rice for herself and the children, and the rest she puts aside for savings. Currently her savings go toward paying her Zidisha loan: this week, she made a payment of $9.86, the first she has managed since July 2011. When I asked her why she chose to make a payment to Zidisha instead of using the money for her own, obviously pressing, financial needs, she seemed surprised at the question. "Because that money, it doesn't belong to me, other people gave it to me to work with and then repay, it is not my own money! I have the obligation to repay it."

    Madame Sow seems to have every intention of repaying the entire remaining balance of $442.71, and even of qualifying for another loan which would allow her to return to the much more lucrative seafood trading business. Her daughter, Ndeye Marie, is now five years old and would normally enroll in elementary school next year. As there is no public school in Madame Sow's neighborhood, she aims to send Ndeye Marie to a local private school which costs about $49 per month - a fortune given Madame Sow's current situation, but an amount she could have managed to afford before her bout with cancer derailed her progress toward a better economic life for her family.

    As lenders to Madame Sow, I'd like to ask that you consider forgiving her debt. Should you decide to do so, you will be declining to receive further repayments from Madame Sow, and her outstanding balance (currently $442.71) will be reduced by the amount that had been remaining due to you under the original loan agreement.

    Here is how to forgive your share of the loan:

    1. Follow the link www.zidisha.org/index.php?p... to Madame Sow's loan profile page.

    2. Log in to your lender account at the top of the page.

    3. Expand the section labeled "Repayment Schedule" and follow the link "I would like to forgive my share of this loan."


    The decision of whether to forgive Madame Sow's loan is yours. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions or comments.

    Kind regards,

    Julia Kurnia

    Director
    Zidisha.org

    (202) 492-6446

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  • Neequayes    Jan 20, 2012

    Aida Sow, a single mom with two kids has been going through some difficulty. Unfortunately, she had to use the money from Zidisha to pay her medical bills. Despite her problems Aida is very passionate about her business and even started to talk about her future plans of working from home so she can be close to her kids. Aida praised Zidisha for being patient with her and ensures that she will pay everything back.

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  • Aida    Jan 6, 2012

    Hello, it's Aida Sow. Each month I can deposit 25,000 because my medications are expensive and my husband has departed and left me with two children. So starting on the 25th I intend to begin again my repayments. Please understand me; I am living with difficulty.

    Translated by     Show original

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  • Julia Kurnia    Nov 30, 2011

    Dear lenders, we received the following mobile phone text message from Aida Sow:

    "I am ill in the hospital at the moment, but as soon as I am released I intend to make my loan repayment installment. This is a debt that I have not forgotten, because the loan funds allowed me to obtain surgery [to remove a life-threatening ovarian tumor in December 2010]."

    Original French is as follows: "Je.sius.hospitalise.mais.deque.je.sor.je.vais.versse.cest.une.dette.que.je.ne.pa.oublie.parceque.cert.cette.argent.que.je.me.sius.opere"

    Best,

    Julia Kurnia
    Director, Zidisha Inc.

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  • Aida    Sep 29, 2011

    I am working to find a solution to repay my loan. With the repayment date modification, I intend to find a date that will allow me to repay without difficulty, because I ordered inventory which has not yet arrived.

    Translated by     Show original

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