Loan to purchase a sewing machine for my tailoring shop

About Me

I am Christine Musende Nalupya, from Zambia, Central Africa. I completed my secondary education plus tertiary education.I am a widow and a mother of 5 children, 3 girls and 2 boys. My husband died 10 years ago and I have devoted my life to taking care, educate and nurture my children into responsible persons. 2 of my girls have so far finished schools and college and are working. My third born girl, just completed college last year and is looking for employment. The last 2 boys are into college now. I also support my niece who is a double orphan, financially who recently completed a teaching course and now waiting to be deployed. We live in our own house which we bought together with my late husband. I also bought a plot and built 3 small flats which i have been slowly building up to window level. During my free time especially on Sundays, I go to church with my children, in the evenings, we sometimes take a walk and have meals out together. Once in a while we go for vacation locally if and when money available within my means so we can have funny together and build a strong bond. I also buy them gifts when and if I can afford. My son plays soccer during his free time with a local team, so we sometimes go to watch and support him when he is playing. I also have friends that I mingle with. We sometimes go out together, attend business meetings, go for movies etc. When I am home, I like cooking and trying out new dishes for the family, when I am free, I play chess with my brother who is an expert. I am planning to join a bowling club to keep fit and to meet new people and mingle with them.

My Business

I bought the plot with my pension money from the benefits I got from my job as a nurse. From the same money, I reserved some to start a shop at a market trading in goods like grocery. There were many shops trading in the same things I was trading into as such competition was stiff, so I decided to go into tailoring. I had some knowledge about fashion and designing. I learnt this from my cousin who used to run a tailoring shop at his home and I would go there to learn how to design and tailor.I started this shop in 2016, in February. People started bringing in their materials and I would charge them labour. Later on I started buying clothes with African prints and making suits for women and men's shirts. My business was growing but at a slow pace due to inadequate funds and so my friend Nalishebo Muyunda invited me to join Zidisha which I did and I am so grateful to her and to Zidisha too. My business keeps growing and I owe this to my lenders and Zidisha as an organisation which has made it possible for me and other people access funding to grow our businesses.

Loan Proposal

This is my 4th loan I am applying for. So far I have made progress in my business and I still continue to work hard to achieve my intended goals. I have increased the quantity of goods I make and I have managed to secure a shop at a busy mall where we do sell only on Sunday, its called Sunday market. There people mainly sell African attires and ornaments. A lot of tourists come there to buy these merchandise. I have also bought a number of catalogues for my customers to have a wider choice of patterns for those who come without patterns. I have put posters to advertise my business in my community and this helped me to clinch an order to make 75 security guard's uniform for a security firm at a total cost of $1,500 at $20 each and I have managed to make 15 of them to be delivered by Monday next week. Since I didn't have enough money, I negotiated with them to give me atleast 3 months to meet their demand, to which they agreed. I am hereby applying for a loan to boost my business further. Though the business has improved, I still need to inject more capital into it to enable me buy another machine worth $650 and employ one worker to help me make the clothes and be able to meet customer's demand. The number of customers keep increasing, which has necessitated me to apply for another loan. Money that I realise from the sales, I use it prudently. I don't forget to service my loan and I save abit of it for sudden, unforeseen circumstances as every business has risks. The rest I plough it back into business. After this loan I will be able increase my profits to between 20% and 25%. I have big future plans for my business. I intend to set up a factory where I will be making all sorts of clothes like school uniforms, work suits etc and sell them to the public. I intend to employ many tailors to enable me cater for the public.