Chitumbi 0701 Group

Chitumbi 0701 is a group of five married women located in Southern Province. The members have an average age of 40 years, and they care for 38 children between them. The women operate different small businesses including grocery shops, goat trading, fish trading and cattle trading, and they depend on the income they generate from their businesses to support their families.

One member of this group is Bella, a 38-year-old mother of four children. Her husband is a farmer, and together they work hard to provide for their family and meet their household needs.

For the past six years, Bella has operated a grocery shop alongside a cattle-rearing business. Her grocery shop supplies customers with essential household goods, while cattle farming provides her with an additional source of income. Through these businesses, she contributes toward food, education and other important expenses for her children.

In order to expand her business and increase her income, Bella intends to use her share of this group loan to buy more stock for her grocery shop. This will enable her to offer her customers more choice and make more sales. She will also use some of the money to strengthen her cattle business.

The other members of Bella's group will also use their shares of the loan to expand their respective businesses and increase their own incomes.

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.