Loan to buy six solar powered-energy saving fishing lamps

Entrepreneur

About Me

I am Alloys Ooko Omboga, I was born in 1951 in the rural village of upper Kachola in Kasgunga Ward, Mbita Constituency of Homa Bay County, Kenya. I was the sixth among 17 siblings from my mothers womb and only child (me) survived! My mother is aged 104 years now though she can't walk anymore. I was brought up as a partial orphan and I did my primary education in late 60's thereafter engaged in fishing business.

I am married with two wives and God has blessed our marriage with 18 children (surviving) and 2 orphaned children from my deceased brother house.

My mother being a peasant farmer did not have means of raising up the children and since I was born the 6th born, four children had already died maybe due to preventable diseases like malnutrition! We had to do all sorts of jobs even at younger age to get food to eat. This interfered with my education and I did not continue with my education past class 7.

After I got married, life became very difficult and I had to find a stable income to support my young family and extend financial support to my aging mother. This forced me to venture in small scale commercial fishing as a source of livelihood.

Mbita is a fishing community and multi-cultural, there are several communities with different cultural and religious backgrounds. I find it easy for me to interact and do business with different kinds of people. In my free time, I do participate in community building and organizing. My hobbies are; watching football and reading novels.

My Business

Since I did not have the opportunity to further my education, I resorted to fishing in the year 1980 and since then I have been working very hard to support my family using proceeds from my fishing business as my life and family survival depends on fishing business.

I have worked hard over the years and I have been saving bit by bit. In the year 2010, I accumulated a total of US!.400 that I used to purchase my own fishing gear and six kerosene powered lamps. I leased a fishing boat (canoe) and it has been doing so well in business when the fish catches are high. One boat fully operational costs U$ 2,200. I deal with catching the small fish 'omena' and it also has some challenges due to high costs of kerosene. I am seeking a loan to enable me replace my kerosene powered lamps.

In average, I earn weekly income of US$80, and then I pay workers and other expenses with $50 I then remain with $30; I use part of this to pay for my children school fee, medical costs and family upkeep.

Loan Proposal

I am seeking a loan of US$100 from ZIDISHA Lenders to add with my savings of US$200 to buy 6 low-energy consumption, solar-charged lanterns/lamps to support my fishing activities at night in Lake Victoria.

This loan will to help me reduce the cost of buying kerosene fuel for use in lamps for night time fishing. The kerosene powered lamps are not environmental friendly and is not economic productive for the fishing business, I look forward to increasing my income per day from KES 100 to KES 1,800 due to savings on fuel purchase as I will be using energy saving and environmental -friendly solar-powered lamps to catch fish.

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