Silas

Silas is 41 years old and married with 3 children who attend school. He runs his own wholesale business in Busebeya trading centre, Nyamagabe district selling items like construction materials, school materials, tailoring items, shoes, cleaning materials (like soap and cleaning brushes) and other sorts of items like non-perishable food stuff. His wife helps him within this line of business and supported by 2 permanent employees.

Nyamagabe City especially Gasarenda and Busebeya Trading centers are a busy centers with a big population; running shop in this areas can be profitable because the people in this city need to purchase their own food and equipment – food being the most sought-after item. With people now staying in the city for longer periods of time without ready access to farm crops for home consumption, there is a good market for local products. He also finds that the other shop owners come to purchase groceries from him to then sell on to their clients.

He began by saving small amounts of cash each month and then about 10 years ago started his own business with a small stock of groceries. His customers are all people living in the Nyamagabe District because he is the only one who owns a wholesale shop selling every sort of items. He currently employs 2 staff and his wife to work in his store. Unfortunately there are limited opportunities for entrepreneurs to access large amounts of money from the usual financial institutions; hence he is requesting this loan from Lendwithcare partner (Umutanguha).

With this loan of 5,000,000Frw (circa £3,520) he will purchase construction materials of 1,400,000Frw (£1002) including (wires, colors, cements, and roof cans) , school materials ( notes book, register, pens and other materials) will cost around 800,000Frw (£573.27), tailoring items will cover around 700,000Frw (£501.39), shoes will cover about 1,000,000Frw (£716.28) and the remaining balance will be invested in cleaning items,, household equipment, transport, to pay his staff and buy other non-perishable food stuffs like biscuits, macaroni, tomato sauce, blue bands and cheese. In order to get all necessary items and groceries to sell, he travels to different districts, because some of the items he currently sells are from the Huye district, some are from the Muhanga District and others are from Kigali, the capital city.

This increases his transport and labour costs to upload and download cargos. His current income is calculated to 250,000Frw (£179) per month after covering all the household basic needs. Therefore he is confident that in 24 months this loan amount will be paid back in full without default.

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.