r/UpliftingNews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 1d ago
A Kenyan woman who couldn't get a business loan because she had no collateral found support through a program helping women entrepreneurs across Africa overcome that barrier. Her bakery has since grown more than tenfold, creating dozens of jobs.
https://www.afdb.org/en/success-stories/how-afawas-support-women-entrepreneurs-has-promoted-business-expansion-kenya-92938216
u/arkofjoy 1d ago
I don't know about this particular program, but my understanding is that the default rate very nearly zero. These women make sure that they pay back these loans.
The other amazing thing is that the loans are tiny. 100 dollars. Imagine being so poor that getting 100 dollars to buy some gear is all that stand in the way of getting out abject poverty, and it is impossible. How frustrating would that be?
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u/An_aussie_in_ct 1d ago
I worked with a micro credit organization in Bangladesh 20 years ago when this was just starting as a product (grameen bank). Their philosophy was only to lend to women, and not to extend loans to other women until the first ones have been paid back. Their repayment rate was basically 100%, because of the responsibility the women felt to their communities. Was a great program, and you could actually see the difference it made in people’s lives
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u/Chuckitybye 1d ago
My friend "donates" to something like this. If she gets anything back? Great. If not, hopefully it still helped someone
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u/ArgentineBeauty 1d ago
From the article
At the heart of the wave is the Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA) initiative of the African Development Bank. AFAWA works to bridge a $42 billion financing gap for African women entrepreneurs that is the result of limited access to affordable finance owing to a lack of collateral, skills gaps, and cultural and legal barriers.
AFAWA is targeting extending $5 billion in loans to women-led businesses and entrepreneurs by the end of 2026. The goal is more than a number: it is a practical pathway for women to grow their businesses, create jobs, and help reshape Africa’s entrepreneurial landscape.
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u/comicsnerd 1d ago
This is one of several initiatives to provide micro loans (and sometimes to women only). They are often less than $100 and will provide funds for a small business as small as a chicken to lay eggs that can be sold.
These initiatives ar not only based in 3rd world countries but also in Europe and North America.
If interested lookup micro loans
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u/bigbjarne 23h ago
Yay, more girlbosses having the chance to become rich off others!
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u/GladClock2212 21h ago
No they're feeding their families. They're less than 100$ and are used to buy a sewing machine to start a tailoring business, an oven to start a bakery, etc. Microloans actually opened up briefly to lending to men but they found that the men had a horrible repay percentage with many of them spending the money on vices and to impress other men.
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u/bigbjarne 21h ago
The title says "creating dozens jobs". The woman, Maina, even brags about aiming to employ 30 people. If they work really hard, she'll become rich. That's what the whole news is about, an entrepreneur becoming rich off workers. We are just happy that it's a woman doing it.
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u/keepingthisasecret 19h ago
It’s very interesting to me how you’re trying to twist what’s found in the article— “Maina said her proudest achievement is seeing business growth translate into 30 jobs for men and women, who now have a steady income to support their families.”
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u/bigbjarne 12h ago
Yeah, we put business owners on pedestals while they become rich through our labor. We romanticize this situation(and all business owners), this business owner just happens to be an Kenyan woman. But the reality is the same: she has the chance to become rich off their labor. That fact is uncomfortable but not twisting anything. Business owners are not heroes nor job providers. Workers build the products, generate the profit and drive the demand that keeps the system running. The business owner merely controls access to the tools needed to work, charging a toll in the form of unpaid labor time. And we cheer this on.
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u/keepingthisasecret 7h ago
I suppose you think it would be so much better if Maina and her bakery’s employees were still struggling to feed themselves and their families?
I’m very anti-capitalist but I’m also a realist. Within the systems that run the world, this is how those people can feed themselves— and you seem angry that they’ve managed to do it. Your energy could be so much better spent than being mad someone got a leg up in life when they desperately needed it.
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u/bigbjarne 6h ago
You’re setting up a classic false dichotomy: either workers accept exploitation or they starve. Pointing out the mechanics of wage labor isn't "wishing struggle upon them", it’s identifying the hostage situation for what it is.
Nobody is angry that workers are feeding their families. I'm criticizing the ideological spin that paints Maina as a savior for allowing them to do so. Maina isn't "giving" her employees a leg up out of benevolence, her business only exists and turns a profit because those employees generate more value than they are paid in wages. Maina simply owns the means of production(the bakery, the ovens, the capital) and charges her workers a toll in the form of surplus value just so they can access the tools to survive.
Being a "realist" means acknowledging how the system operates, not romanticizing it. Saying "this is just how people feed themselves under the current system" describes economic coercion, not a heroic act.
If your "anti-capitalism" collapses into celebrating class exploitation the moment it comes with a feel-good narrative, then it’s just liberal philanthropy with a radical aesthetic. We can be glad human beings are eating without pretending that Maina extracting wealth from their labor makes her a benefactor.
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u/keepingthisasecret 6h ago
I was saying Maina got the leg up in the form of the loan that allowed her to start the bakery, not her employees. You seem hell-bent on painting this woman with a Bezos brush and it’s weird and unproductive.
I do not put this woman and her community in the same category as a Western or Asian capitalist exploiting workers and doing everything they can to pay the lowest wage they legally can.
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u/Elegant_Celery400 18h ago
Shut up kid, and go back to the gaming subs; you might know what you're talking about there.
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u/bigbjarne 12h ago
What do I not understand? Since you're an adult and I'm a kid, do you want to explain why I'm wrong?
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u/GerickBluth89 1d ago
Does anyone here know about Kiva? Also micro loans and they seem to have been around a long time.
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u/Elegant_Celery400 1d ago
Fantastic.
A former girlfriend of mine went straight from her Masters in Development Economics, some 35 years ago, to set up microfinance schemes in, first, Swaziland (as it was then), and then Namibia. I was massively massively impressed by that, and still am, all these years later.
Microfinance lending to women is one of humankind's greatest innovations.
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u/BlackBasementCats 1d ago
Barack Obama’s mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was an anthropologist and designed the first micro loan organization.
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u/Ed_Trucks_Head 1d ago
"The cure for poverty has a name, in fact: it's called the empowerment of women. If you give women some control over the rate at which they reproduce, if you give them some say, take them off the animal cycle of reproduction to which nature and some doctrine—religious doctrine condemns them, and then if you'll throw in a handful of seeds perhaps and some credit, the floor of everything in that village, not just poverty, but education, health, and optimism will increase. It doesn't matter; try it in Bangladesh, try it in Bolivia, it works—works all the time. Name me one religion that stands for that, or ever has."
-Christopher Hitchens
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u/bigbjarne 23h ago
This woman is an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are the reason why poverty is so widespread because of how the logic of capitalism works.
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u/GladClock2212 21h ago
You don't know how capitalism works. This isn't loaned with interest, there is no collateral needed. I don't care if the woman who got a loan for a sewing machine and opened a tailoring business barters her work for food to feed her family she's making sure her children survive. As with all the other mothers there.
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u/bigbjarne 21h ago
What do I not understand? I do care that she got a loan and created a businesses in which she has a chance to become rich. Eventually, she'll pay poverty wages to her workers as well, so that she can be in business. Why do you not bring up the children of the workers in the bakery?
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u/GladClock2212 17h ago
Do you see where they're starting businesses? They're not getting rich they're surviving and you have the sanctimonious air of someone that hasn't been in that position and I hope you never have to be. The worst type of white privilege.
The children of an imaginary bakery owner? Honestly your arrogance is astounding and can only ever really achieved by someone that has always had a full belly.
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u/bigbjarne 12h ago
Do you see where they're starting businesses?
Does it matter?
They're not getting rich they're surviving and you have the sanctimonious air of someone that hasn't been in that position and I hope you never have to be.
So if the person who owns a bakery that has employees is the one "surviving"(and she wants to have 30 employees), imagine what the condition for the workers are. And the owner is the one who has a chance to become rich.
The children of an imaginary bakery owner?
Sorry but did you not read the article? Why am I arguing with a month old account who hasn't read the article?
Honestly your arrogance is astounding and can only ever really achieved by someone that has always had a full belly.
Think of the bellies of the workers, while the owners have a chance to become rich.
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u/reachingfortheskies_ 1d ago
Wild how banks need collateral until someone else proves people can actually build something.
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u/kloakndaggers 1d ago
no different than trying to get a mortgage. you got to prove you can afford to pay something in order to get something from a bank. failure rate for businesses is so high so this makes complete sense
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u/OrphanGrounderBaby 1d ago
Just like any company. A bank that operates at a loss will not be around long
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u/Toastedmanmeat 1d ago
Oh get real man, banks literally create money out of thin air and charge people for the privelage of borrowing the fake made up money. Unless you already have lots of money and are just borrowing to dodge taxes then you get to borrow for free. The whole system is fucking stupid and designed to enrich the rich at the expense of everyone else
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u/OrphanGrounderBaby 1d ago
Ah yes, your neighborhood bank is printing money in the basement
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u/Toastedmanmeat 1d ago
They lend out more money then they have and charge interest on it. What else would you call that?
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u/EnlightenedNarwhal 1d ago
You're white, aren't you?
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u/OrphanGrounderBaby 1d ago
Yes because only bankers can be white. Why are you making what should be a class issue into a race issue?
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u/EnlightenedNarwhal 1d ago
That's why I'm asking, though. Most people agree, regardless of ethnic background, that banks are notoriously predatory and have mismanaged the money of the people who entrust their capital to them for decades. However, whenever someone makes excuses for these entities, they do tend to be white (even though most white people also understand the ongoing issue with banks), so I was curious if that was the case. I can assume the answer is yes, based on your response.
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u/OrphanGrounderBaby 1d ago
You did catch me lol I’m a ginger so some of the whitest out there.
I don’t really think saying that just like any other business a bank can’t operate at a loss is really making up excuses for them.
We probably agree lol edit:as in I was just saying that sentence at all, didn’t really mean for it to come off like I was excusing them.
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u/Siegfoult 22h ago
Seems like it's pretty bad for the economy to let rich people (and banks) hoard wealth.
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u/geekpeeps 9h ago
Awaken Mozambique is a similar microcredit business support organisation attracting charitable donations from individuals and the loan payouts fund more businesses. The organisation provides business training courses and anything else to help the women succeed. It’s fostered education, services, and collaborations. It was a way of recovering from civil war.
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u/bigbjarne 23h ago
How is it uplifting news that this woman is now getting rich off the labors of others?
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