Loan for a teacher with a knack for business

Entrepreneur

About Me

My name is Esther Wanjiru and Kenyan citizen. I am a teacher of English and English literature. I am a second born in a family of five. I was born in Kiambu county Kenya where I went through my primary school education then secondary school. I later joined Kenyatta University where I took a course in Bachelor of Arts and later a post graduate diploma in Education. I later got employed as a teacher and posted to Mombasa County where I am still teaching.
I am a mother of two young children.

I started a business in 2010 to supplement my salary since I had difficulties in meeting my many expenses such as rent, school fees for my children, transport e and also helping out my ageing parents back home. I run a general shop where I sell common household items like flour, soap, sugar etc. I also sell cooking gas in cylinders. I also started a money transfer business (M-pesa) within the same establishment. I rely on two workers to run the business since I spend most of time in school where I work.
I am a go-getter, focused and very ambitious woman. I believe in integrity and hard work.

My Business

As stated above, I run a three in one business – the main one being the shop where there is a steady flow of shoppers who buy goods worth anything from $0.5 to $20 per shopper. I also sell gas cylinders in quantities of 3kg and 13kg at a retail price of $7 and $26 respectively. I also do a money transfer business (called M-Pesa locally) where I serve about 60 clients daily.
The three departments give me a net profit of about $650 per month – after paying the rent, other bills and salaries.
My business requires heavy investment for buying stock especially the gas section. I sometimes fail to cope with the demand of the gas cylinders since my stock gets depleted very fast especially during the end-month when most workers get paid. I have decided to join Zidisha to access credit which will enable me to build up my stock as this will bring satisfaction to my customers.

Loan Proposal

In business world, timing is everything. This is harvest time for farmers in the countryside. They are busy harvesting corn, beans and green grams. This is the best time to buy their produce since they sell it at a cheap price. You also get to buy the produce directly from the farmers without going through the middlemen who make it very expensive.
This will also guard the farmers against losses since they do not have good storage capacity which leads to huge losses if they fail to sell their harvest immediately especially corn which is very susceptible to afllatoxins.

If given this loan I plan to spend it as follows

1. 10 90kg bags of corn @ 28 = $280
2. 2 90kg bags of beans @ 30 = $60
3. 2 90Kg bags of green grams @30 = $60

Transport costs at about $ 50.

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