Rowell

Rowell Ofqueria is 35 years old, lives with his partner called Reabie. They have a 7 year old child and the family lives in the village of Suba, Bantayan in Cebu province. They lived in an island not too far from the mainland of Bantayan. A place where they only use solar panels to get power to light in their house. To earn a living for his family, Rowell focus in seaweed farming. He is also into fishing activity to provide food in their table.

Rowell grow up in doing fishing activity because his father is a fisherman. He previously worked with the construction industry to provide the needs for his family. He decided to return home to focus in seaweed culture just like his father. Seaweeds are good to harvest after 45 days. To culture seaweed, he made a floating block made of bamboo poles. He has three square blocks and each block have a length between 6 to 10 meters. As you can see in the photos, he have dried seaweeds that is ready to sell to a trader in their village. The current price per kilo of a dried seaweeds is 41 pesos (£0.62) and total number of kilos harvested is 150. He hires one helper to gather the fresh seaweeds from the blocks. To replant the one block that is now empty after the harvest, he will need to buy seaweed seedlings from other planters in the village. The remaining two blocks will be harvested end of December until January. He plans to build two more blocks to increase his production and generate more income in the future. To make this happen, Rowell become a member of the MFI-Lamac MPC and applied for his first loan. He will use the loan to buy materials in making the two blocks that includes bamboo poles, ropes and super twine. He will hire two people to help him in building blocks and will hire up to ten people who will do the tying of seaweed seedlings to the ropes. He will not buy seaweed seedlings and will use his existing seaweeds. He will set aside funds to pay the workers he will hire in the process.

Rowell will continue to work hard and hope that his business will continue to grow with the help of the loan he sought. He promise to repay the loan over the period of twelve months and in lump sum repayment. Please see the repayment schedule below for more details.

The coronavirus pandemic and subsequent restrictions have had a big impact on various economic sectors in the Philippines. The low-income entrepreneurs we support through Lendwithcare require finance to help rebuild and restart their businesses.

“If you are lending, please be aware that due to the current COVID-19 pandemic your repayments could be at greater risk of delay or default”.