Project Education Sweden Micro-Business Support October 2018
We are currently still only working with six beneficiaries as the people from the previous course have not completed their business plans so were not eligible for the grant. Two of them received jobs and therefore no longer had the time to put into running a small business. The remaining two lacked the necessary motivation to research their business ideas sufficiently. In the meantime we have run a further business course and expect four of these participants to apply for the grant and they are currently completing their business plans. The progress of the group that have received their grants has been very gratifying apart from one of the participants who has not been coming to meetings and is not at home when we have gone to see her. We will continue to try and track her down. A description of the six beneficiaries and their small businesses follows:
Phatiswa Tetyana has continued to save for the fridge that she wants to get and expects to be able to do this in December. She has in the meantime got a standing weekly order for amagwinya from an organization in the community. This has helped her enormously in terms of cash flow as well as being able to put some money away as she is now assured of a weekly income. She has continued to also sell fish and chips and this is running smoothly. She has been struggling with recording her cash flow accurately but is working on it and is understanding better how this can help her plan her business better. She is also producing crochet items for another project being run in Kayamandi and has recently started doing needlework as well. This also supplements the income that she gets from her small catering business.
Nothandekile Ngalo spent the money on fabrics and has started to produce more items that can be sold off the shelf. She has started to apply some of the business principles that she learned on the course and has made a point of every day calculating her profits, putting money aside to restock and then saving some of the remaining money. A recent death in her family necessitated a trip to the Eastern Cape and she was delighted to find that she had more than enough money to be able to pay for her transport to the funeral and still had some savings left over. She has seen an increase in the number of customers she is getting for her sewing business but the biggest change has been in the way that she is handling her cash. Her business has become more resilient as a result of this and she is confident that she will now be able to grow the business further. Her business selling snacks to school children in the area is also going well. She currently covers three different schools in a day and is generating a fair sized income from this. This money also helps to supplement her income when there is not sufficient sewing work coming in.
Lindiswa Ngamlana has used the money that she received to buy more materials to use in her sewing business. She is producing more goods and is pleased with how her business is progressing. Her financial controls are good and she is managing to keep sufficient money aside to restock with materials as well as saving a little to repair her machine. In the meantime we have found her a machine that she can use until she can afford to get her machine fixed. Her work includes beading and she is testing some designs that she believes will be attractive to tourists as well as members of the community. She is very creative and is always thinking of new products that she can develop and how to add more value to items that she buys.
Bulelwa Tito has now completed the order for soft toys for America. She has also started offering sewing lessons to interested members of the community and has five students sponsored by Love to Give. The course includes all aspects of sewing including pattern making. These students assisted with getting the order completed and as a result started earning a little money while they were still studying. Her financial controls have improved enormously and she has now computerized her income and expenditure and has developed a template for invoicing. She also recently had a pop-up shop at a community event and was able to showcase her work to people from the greater Stellenbosch community.
Busisiwe Potelwa did well with the winter clothes and hats that she bought with the business grant. She is also keeping good financial records and is able to track her profit margins and how much money she has available to grow her business. As a result of the research that she did on the business course, she has scaled back on the multi- level marketing products that she was selling as she found that the competition was too high and the profit margins were much smaller than on the products she was sourcing herself . She has also done good research on finding suppliers that stock different types of products than those that are easily available in Kayamandi. She has now started selling clothes and accessories that are more appropriate for warmer weather and anticipates being able to grow her business and to be able to send more money to the Eastern Cape.
With the exception of Nompumelelo we are very pleased with the progress of the business beneficiaries and remain impressed with their hardwork, enthusiasm and commitment. We will be able to report back further on Nompumelelo’s business in the next report and will also have the full complement of beneficiaries as the next lot of students complete their business plans. We are enormously grateful for the funding that has allowed us to assist these women and look forward to their growth and move towards self-sufficiency. Thank you Project Education Sweden!
Ladda ner Nyhetsbrevet i sin helhet här: Project Education Love to Give Report Oct 2018
