Introduction to my 2nd project

7/5/09, 10.42pm

gosh its been 2 days and I feel like a weeks gone by already!!in the last few days I have visted Kwa Idd, where my 2nd project is based. A group of small business minded individuals have approached out NGO for help and support. It was pretty amazing to see these individuals get together to create a community group. They meet up once a week to disucss the health problems of the members of the group and update each other on their efforts to raise finance. To meet such people in such rural areas was rather enlightening and impressive. They have so much aspiration to try and create their own little businesses and support themselves and their families. Which is great as they are not the kind of people who want handouts or sympathy from outsiders. No matter how small the business idea, just sitting and listening to their thoughts and idea was enough for me. For this project, our organisation has managed to locate some donors back home and raise 1.18 M TSH . The group consists of 31 individuals and we have calculated for the first round of micro-finance loans, we can distribute 9-10 loans for the group.Therefore the process will begin with me visiting all the 31 individuals and discussing their ideas to expand or start up small businesses.I have to sress this is not the small business's you may have in mind...after inital discussions these ranged from a individual selling 2nd hand clothes in a small built room and wanting the loan to purchase pashmina type scarfs from the Dar es Salaam to increase her profits by 35,000 Tsh.The most ironic yet not shocking discovery about this was the fact that these clothes are those very ones the external world donate to third world countries!!
I noticed how this was the norm all over Tanzania..you could walk through a village and see a clothes stall set up, these clothes all came from the big cities and sold to local villagers in bulk. Everytime i see a stall I get so angry...especially as they are donated to reach these people..not to be sold to them! although I always had doubts everytime I'd visit the recylce clothese bin in shopping complexes. Guess it's different when you see it in front of you where they actually go!!