The lives of some petty traders have rapidly transformed since the inception of Finance Salone, a limited liability company which seeks to help traders through a microfinance loan scheme.
Sarah Conteh is one of the success stories of this microfinance scheme.
She started off with few cloths of Gara fabrics and now her business has grown threefold.
Sarah was trained as a qualified hair dresser at the Community Training Centre at Grassfield, Babadorie. She explained that she was part of a group of ten who went for the loan scheme.
She stated that they were given Le 300,000 each, adding that they received a crash course training which helped them greatly in investing the loan.
“I have paid back the loan and intend to go in for another to improve my business,” she said.
Momoh Conteh, 38, said, “I’ve been a tailor for about 15 years. I started borrowing money from Finance Salone this year, around February. I am a group lender. I have borrowed 300,000 and 400,000 Leones. I bought some sewing machines so I could employ more people. I used to have 10 machines, but now I have 14 machines. I have 6 in the shop and 8 in the house. I want to extend the shop and to open some other branches”.
ADVERTISEMENT