Planting

John

Nairobi, Kenya

100% repaid

Entrepreneur

Name

John

Member since

August 2017

On-time repayments

48 installments  •  35%

About Me

I'm a single male parent of two lovely kids. The harsh economic climate in this country has led me to venture into different small scale businesses to give my children and I a comfortable life.
I grew up in a family of four where I'm a third born. Growing up was not a walk in the park, from an early age we were taught responsibility and life skills in many aspects of life. We learnt to respect property and earn through hard work. We had a small retail shop and through it and my education I learnt a bit of business which I have later applied to earn a supplementary income to support my small family and take them through school. I always enjoy implementing ideas and seeing them grow, hard work and earning an honest living.
My children are my life. I live and work so they can achieve their dreams. The girl is the oldest at 11years and she endeavours to venture into business and also become a big time actress. The boy is 9 and is very bright in school, he says he will become a famous athlete when he grows up. I have noticed both their talents and I support and encourage them through whatever means I can.
Kenya is my beautiful country and offers a lot from beautiful sceneries, wildlife, sports, infrastructure, entrepreneurship opportunities and much more. We're rich in agriculture and innovations.
Every year as a hobby, I and my kids save up to visit some of these places and just enjoy the beauty and diversity in our country. When not working, in school or visiting, we like to sit around, interact and enjoy each others company over a board game or cooking.

My Business

I'm trying out two ventures currently; agriculture and clothing. 
I have leased a small piece of land which I'm cultivating green vegetables to sell to retailers and final consumers. I'd wish to expand this and supply more. Currently this is a big challenge for me because the little resources I get from the sales I have to divide it between the farm and home expenses since currently I've been put out of work. The farm really helps a lot as I get food for my house and also sell to the markets. I'd like to expand on this to help meet my needs without hurting the farm returns. At the moment, I have to rent a water pump to pump water to the Shamba, fuel for the pump, fertilizers and manure and also pesticides. I'd wish to buy a pump and more pipes to avoid this costs and this will help pump water regularly and thus increasing my yields. 

My second venture is a clothing stall which I started with some money I saved from my last job. I buy and sell second hand baby clothes and beddings and it does fairly well. I use the revenue I gain from this to restock on more clothes to meet my customers' demands, pay rent and also fend for my home. This leaves little or nothing for savings or much needed expansion. 
I intend to partition the space to make room for a mobile money outlet as well as prepaid electricity tokens. This will provide a much needed service to the local residents and also supplement on the revenues from the clothing business. In turn, it will improve life for everyone around.

Loan Proposal

I needed a loan of USD. 249
I've since been working hard to raise build trust and raise my loan limit buy investing and paying off the loans I get promptly.
Im glad to submit I've done the ploughing, planted, sold seedlings which did very well, and planted others that are doing well and I'm selling as well.
From this, I made about USD65 from which I cleared my loan in good time. I'm putting aside USD 35 for my next stage which is to get a water pump to irrigate my farm. This will greatly improve my life as I won't need to hire one everytime I want to irrigate the Shamba which in the long run costs a lot more than purchasing a pump that's yours to keep.
I've identified one that is going for USD 90 and working pretty well. I will use the loan to top up on what I have and some extra from the proceeds on the farm to buy the machine.
I look forward to your greatly appreciated support on this.
It will go a long way to improving my little family's life more because as it stands I'm already reaping benefits from Zidisha support as I no longer buy vegetables for my domestic use.

Thanks so much Zidisha and all your supporters.

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Loan Info

Project Type

Classic Loan

Disbursed amount

$46.00

Date disbursed

Nov 30, 2017

Repayment status

On Time

Projected term

4 months

Lenders

Jeremy

Washington State, United States, United States

R

Rembrandt

United Kingdom

Mr Chris Turner

Cambridge forever England, United Kingdom

D

Dave

Dropmore, Manitoba, Canada

Paul Buchheit

Mountain View, United States

JG

Jake Gibson and Beverly Picardo

San Francisco, United States

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