Research 0101 Group

Research 0101 Group consists of five married women from Eastern Province. They are aged between 20 and 50 years old and collectively care for 41 children. They run a variety of small businesses including selling sausages, shoes and plastic dishes, and operating beauty shops.

One of the group members is Ruth, a 42-year-old married mother of two children. For the past three years, she has worked hard to support her family by selling plastic shoes and household dishes. Through her experience, she has gained a good understanding of the products her customers prefer and now has a loyal customer base within her community.

However, limited working capital prevents Ruth from always being able to keep enough stock to meet the growing demand for her goods. She will therefore use her share of this group loan to buy larger quantities of plastic shoes and dishes so she can offer more to her customers. This will enable her to increase her sales and earn more income.

The other members of Research 0101 Group will use their loan shares to improve and expand their own individual businesses.

The Microloan Foundation, Lendwithcare's local partner in Zambia employs a unique 'centre' model for lending to female entrepreneurs. A centre comprises several sub-groups which share the same name as the centre. As such, you may have seen similarly named group loans from Zambia all belonging to the same centre. In this system, each woman is individually responsible for repaying her loan, but the group offers mutual support by assuming overall responsibility together.