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LAPO Has Lifted My Business
Doris IwhiwhuAmong the numerous clients of Lift Above Poverty Organization (LAPO) in Abraka town, Delta State is Mrs. Doris Iwhiwhu, a 34-year old mother of four children.
Urhobo by tribe, she is of average height, light in complexion, soft spoken and friendly. She trades in fruits and has been in the business for more than three and half years. Students of the Delta State University, Abraka campus are her major customers since she sells in a location very close to it.
Mrs. Iwhiwhu is a native of Abraka and resides at No 4, Inele Street, Abraka. She belongs to Ufuoma I Union and joined the organization in the year 2001.
She was born into the family of Mr. and Mrs Erhabor. Her father was then a peasant farmer and mother, a petty trader. Like most female children, she was not fortunate to receive western education though she said she would have loved to do so. She says her parents' poor economic background and ignorance of the value of female education was chiefly responsible for this. She also pointed at the discriminatory cultural practice that existed then in her community, which favoured the male child in terms of opportunities for advancement. She said girls were left behind to carry out domestic chores and to till the soil to the detriment of their future well being.
She lamented that while some of her brothers were being forced to go to school, she was pushed aside and made to learn a vocation in hair styling. She was about 25 years old when she concluded her training in hair styling. This was her story and life situation before she eventually got married to her husband in the year 1991.
Before she came into contact with LAPO, her family was not having it rosy at all. ?Things were difficult,? she says: ?We were finding it uneasy to cope and meet the basic needs of the family. My children were hungry and frustration mounted on a daily basis.? She said the problem was that the whole family depended on the weak financial shoulders of her husband, a lowly paid civil servant with the Delta State Government. To worsen their condition, her husband's salaries are sometimes unpaid for a period spanning three or four months. This forced the family to live under a very bad economic condition with no hope of escape.
Obviously saddened by this turn of events and worried that the situation may just get worse, Mrs. Iwhiwhu started to search for an alternative source of income to augment the financial needs of the family. Her first response was to work towards self-employment since securing a white-collar job was difficult due to her little education.
After considering several options, she settled for hair styling business, a skill she had learnt several years back. Between the year 1991 and 2001 that she engaged herself in this vocation, no significant improvement was recorded in the family's living standard. The problem was epileptic electric power supply that dealt her saloon business a serious blow. She was worried and deep in confusion. She would have bought a Yamaha generator to power her equipment had she the means. No solution was in sight and again, frustration begun to mount. She was later constrained to change from this saloon business to fruits selling which she considered less problematic and more profitable. ?I was able to raise about N5, 000 to start my present fruits business. My husband added about N2, 000 to it, totaling N7, 000. This was how I got started.?
Mrs. Iwhiwhu started so little, selling first at the roadside since the money was not enough to stock all that was required, not to talk of renting a shop. Her desire to expand her business further so as to generate more profit led her to begin an earnest search for capital. She was obviously not satisfied with the small size of the business and the small profit it attracted. She needed a serious business boost. Again the problem was funding. How could she raise money? Who could give capital? All these questions competed for answers at the same time.
Her journey in LAPO started with an encounter with one of her close friends that same year in which she became a LAPO client. She was told ?LAPO gives loans to poor women to enable them engage in viable income-generating activities to better their lots in life. They give poor women money to trade so that they can feed their children and educate them as well.? This was her major headache. She therefore got interested in the whole programme and decided to ascertain the true situation by attending one of the organization's union meetings in a place very close to her residence.
At the meeting, she saw other women take loans. She understood the reasons why these loans were being taken and the joy on the faces of the loan beneficiaries. At this juncture, she made up her mind and after due consultations with her husband, joined the organization. She was registered in Ufuoma I union in the year 2001.
She later participated in the compulsory six weeks pre-loan and micro finance training, which qualified her for her first loan of N8, 000 that same year. With this money in hand, she was able to consolidate on her business, stocking more goods such as pineapples, oranges, bananas, coconuts, groundnuts and others in large quantities.
With her second loan of N12, 000, she got her business further expanded and stabilized. Mrs. Iwhiwhu proved herself with the prompt repayment of loans and thus endeared herself to her branch manager. Subsequently, she received N15, 000, N25, 000 and N30, 000, their regular Christmas Business and Asset Loans respectively. These and all the profits were ploughed back into the business.
Through the support and loans provided by LAPO, which has given her fruits business a remarkable boost, Mrs. Iwhiwhu is now able to complement the family budget. This ordinarily would have been a difficult thing to do. She is now able to cater for the needs of the family and give the children some financial attention when her husband is not financially buoyant. She has this to say of her experience and contact with LAPO. ?This year alone, I received a total of N30, 000 as loan from LAPO. Regular loans from LAPO have really helped my fruits business and by extension, my entire family. We no longer depend solely on my husband's inadequate income. One good thing about the loans is that they are not difficult to repay because of its soft conditions. There is no other financial institution around that could render such assistance to people like me, in spite of the fact that I have nothing to give as collateral. I like everything about LAPO. It should keep up the good work.?
Presently, Mrs. Iwhiwhu makes N5, 000 weekly as her profits and saves the sum of N200 daily through Olidara, an itinerant savings collector.
She has benefited from several training programmes undertaken by LAPO Development Centre (LADEC) and LAPO Health, LAPO's sister organizations.
Some of them are Gender, Environment and Leadership Trainings (GELT) and reproductive and maternal health trainings where ?I have learnt that men and women are created equal by God and can achieve whatever they set their minds to. I have also been taught the essence of good nutrition and the need to keep my environment clean.?
On the whole, Iwhiwhu says she has enjoyed the services of LAPO and has been able to achieve a lot through its support. She hopes to educate her children up to the university level.
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