Ouaregma is 48, married, and the mother of seven children. She has been selling onions for 30 years. At the moment, she needs a loan to buy bags of onions for resale.
At the market where she is a vendor, Ouaregma is well-known for her experience, for the respect that she shows to her customers, and for her warm welcome. Beside, the onions that she sells are of good quality. For all these reasons, Ouaregma’s business is doing quite well.
Her sales will allow Ouaregma to make a profit which will help her to put some money into savings, to take care of her family, and to pursue her professional activity. She is taking her fifth loan with ACFIME and has successfully repaid her previous loans.
Agence Communautaire pour le Financement de la Micro Entreprise (ACFIME) administers this loan.
ACFIME is a microfinance institution in Burkina Faso that provides loans to women and farmers in low-income communities. Kiva funding allows ACFIME to offer solidarity loans to groups of women and agricultural loans to farmers who struggle to receive loans from other microfinance institutions in the country. With Kiva funding, ACFIME has the capacity to have a huge impact on the economic and social-well being of the most marginalized people in Burkina Faso.
In a group loan, each member of the group receives an individual loan but is part of a larger group of individuals. The group is there to provide support to the members and to provide a system of peer pressure, but groups may or may not be formally bound by a group guarantee. In cases where there is a group guarantee, members of the group are responsible for paying back the loans of their fellow group members in the case of delinquency or default.
Kiva’s Field Partners typically feature one borrower from a group. The loan description, sector, and other attributes for a group loan profile are determined by the featured borrower’s loan. The other members of the group are not required to use their loans for the same purpose.