A group of individuals—Amarech Mihirete, Mulu Bekele, Tariku Ida’a, Sa’ada Awol, Bitarge Mekonin, Desta Bekele, and Genet Bekele—was organized by a social worker named “Charity’ in Woreda 1, Yeka sub-city. To support their income-generating efforts and enhance their well-being, the Water Bureau of the sub-city built public latrines and bathrooms for the group and provided a water tanker along with installation services.
Before one year and six months, the charity had assessed information about VisionFund MFI to link the vulnerable group to access financial services as a working capital to fulfill the facilities of the service, so that, group members came to VisionFund MFI Sholla Branch to access financial services. The clients organized in group modality to access credit from the branch. After receiving financial literacy orientation from the branch CSO, the group members opened account, started saving and applied for credit. At the 1st loan cycle the group has received 80,000 Birr loan to improve facilitations of the public latrine and bath rooms. On the 2nd loan cycle the group has received 120,000 Birr to increase the facilities by buying boiler, additional tanker and generator machine to pull up the water to both tankers. So that, the group could buy boiler, additional tanker and generator for the public toilet and bath rooms to increase service standards. The generator pulls up the water to the tankers and the boiler supports for boiling the water for the bath rooms.
The daily business activity of the group shows that from the daily services the group could generate at least 1,000birr income but, on Sunday this figure increases to 1,500birr maximum. The group members deposit the daily collection and share at the end of the month as salary income. Each group members deposit from amount of share on their own VisionFund MFI account and capitalize it every month. Using some amount of the income, the group members could improve the livelihoods of their own families, they could feed their children, they could send their children to school, they could improve the education facilities of the children, could improve the health status of their households. Moreover, the group members could buy furniture and equipment for their houses. In general, the group members could improve their lives by generating income from the public latrine and bath room services. Each group members have started deposing from their own income at VisionFund MFI to increase their saving balances.
The group members witnessed that VisionFund MFI has a great role to improve our business activities by providing loan to us, and improved our lives through credit access. Currently, they have good market and reputation in their surrounding area. In the future, the group members have a plan to upgrade the facility of the latrine and bath rooms to provide good service for the surrounding communities.
