Ngara, TZ – Employee making step-changes for his family and home – 9 Nov 2016

SODAT garden shop employee Shafan is making step-changes in life improvement for his family. He recently received a loan to expand his small shop and also put a down payment on an electric connection to his home.

He has always been a hard worker with good personal finance sense. He built his family’s previous home by raising two pigets and eventually expanding his project to six full grown pigs, which he sold all at once and built his house.

Shafan, 27, lives with his wife, Adventina, and their three children: Magret, 4, Samson, 2, and Martha, 2 months. He has worked for SODAT since they started their organic gardening program in July 2014. He appreciates having a steady income from the garden shop which allows him to invest money from farming into other income generating projects. Over the last couple of years he has slowly been investing in a small shop in the center of Mukibogoye village. His wife works at the shop during the day when Shafan is working for the garden shop.

Last year he used money from selling bananas to purchase a motorcycle. The motorcycle enables Shafan to move quickly between work and his home business, as well as to drive into town to get supplies for his store. After his last corn harvest he bought an additional acre of land from a neighbor. He is planting coffee, eucalyptus, and banana seedlings on the land for future harvests.

Now, Shafan has saved money to get electricity connected at his house. He also received a loan from Better Lives to expand his shop. Once he repays this loan, he hopes to request a larger loan to further expand the shop.