Arlene

Arlenn Maasin is a resident of Brgy. Luray II, Toledo City in Cebu province. She is married to Roldan and they have five children ages between 3 to 17 years old. Four of her children attends school. To earn a living, Arlenn runs a fish stall and also engaged in hog raising business. Her husband is her helping hand in running their businesses.

Arlenn successfully repaid her first loan to Lendwithcare last December 2017. She had used the loan in order to increase her working capital. Her fish stall business located in the public market of Toledo has been operating for seventeen years now. She employs two people who manages the day to day business activities. Every morning she goes to her stall to display the fishes and then return home to rest and goes back to her fish stall in the afternoon. Her eldest child also helps in the stall. She and her husband Roldan are the ones who purchase their fishes in the biggest fish market in Cebu city. They have their own multi-cab that is used in transporting their products. Arlenn also have two pregnant sows to feed. Both sows will give birth this month. After the piglets are born, she will raise them all and feed them until fully grown. She have a regular meat stall owner where she delivers her fully grown pigs.

For over four years now, Arlenn has been accessing loans through the MFI-Lamac to fund her businesses. Recently, she requested another loan to have additional funds in buying volume of fresh fishes to sell everyday. She usually need a capital of more than 20,000 pesos (£298.02) per purchase in Cebu city.

Arlenn hopes and pray that their businesses will continue to grow and hoping to generate more income in the future for them to continuously provide the needs of her children and send them all to school. She will repay the loan over the short period of three months.

The Microloan Foundation in Zambia lend to female entrepreneurs using the ‘centre’ model. A centre is typically made up of 3-4 sub-groups and these sub-groups almost always have five members. Each centre has its own name and the sub-groups within the centre share the same name. Each person within the group of five women is responsible for repaying her loan but the members support each other and if a member is unable to repay her loan on time, then the group assumes responsibility for repayment. Loan officers provide training to the groups, although it is expected that centre leaders will eventually assume responsibility for providing some of the basic training.

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.