Who’s in class? Some you’d expect: Corn farmers, poultry farmers, clothes traders (they call themselves ‘petty traders’ — they need a better self-description… there’s nothing petty about schlepping a day away to Accra, haggling over a wholesale price and returning to distribute their wares on razor-thin margins back here) and a few shop owners. Some jobs you wouldn’t expect: pepper processors, life insurance salesmen, an author, a few accountants and one photographer.
Their big worry? As Stephen suggests in an earlier post: risk and capital. In the ice-breaker, I just mentioned these once and struck a gusher of anxiety. They implored us: how can you risk capital to grow your business when you have no capital? Indeed, it’s a shame. These folks started with, literally, nothing but an idea and a dream. They now have a small shop or a business that feeds the family or just enough crop to say they’re above subsistence farming. But that’s it. And despite that huge step (could you do it? would you do it? start your own business with no safety net?) their local banks don’t see enough collateral to make the loan that will take them to the next step. Then, how do they get there? Micro-lending… more on that in the next post from Sunyani.
- Fuzz
