Mahama Ramatu

Mahama Ramatu is a busy and optimistic mother of seven children. Farming and petty trading are her sources of livelihood. She is married and lives in Garu, a town located in the Upper East region of Ghana, with her family. She said three of her children are in school while the rest have dropped out.

Ramatu said she has been in the farming and petty trading business for over 30 years. She can recall that a company called DEKI came and supported them with loans to expand their businesses but left. Since then, she has not been able to acquire loans from formal banks because she has no collateral or guarantors to acquire a loan from formal banks. She said it affected her income level and family life badly. She could no longer support her children’s schooling, and because of that, four of her children had to drop out of school. Ramatu lamented bitterly how her children were bullied and disrespected by their schoolmates because they were not always in good school uniforms and sandals. Her husband is alive but does not support her to take care of her children. She said she has been taking care of the family for the past 28 years, and it has not been easy for her until she heard about C.A Micro Credit from a community member who is a customer of C.A Micro Credit. She said her friend advised her to enroll with C.A Micro Credit. She did and applied for a loan of GHS1,500, and it was approved for her. According to her, she used GHS400 to buy fertilizer for her maize farm, GHS150 to hire labor, GHS800 to buy gari, sugar, biscuits, pencils, and so on to sell, and GHS50 as transportation costs.

She said for a period of eight months, she repaid her loan, including the loan interest, and had a profit of GHS1,250. The extra income generated was used to send three of her children back to school and buy clothes and sandals for them. In addition, she had a good harvest from her maize farm, which is used to feed the family. Ramatu is on her third loan cycle, and she is optimistic that the profit that would be realized from her business would be able to pay her third loan and take care of her family, especially her children’s school fees.

Ramatu said her ,tears and those of her children have been completely wiped off. She now has a happy family and is hopeful that, with financial support from C.A Microcredit and hard work, she would be able to stock her store fully and train her children in school so she can enjoy the fruits of her labor when she finally ages. Ramatu wants to advise her friends to enroll with C.A Micro Credit to get easy and reliable credit assistance to grow their businesses. They should work hard and manage their credit very well because credit management is very important in the successful running of any business.

She wants to use this opportunity to show her deepest appreciation to C.A micro-credit and its investors for their support because C.A Micro Credit has put smiles on the faces of women and children in Garu, and she is not an exception. To the best of her knowledge, there are so many women out here who are struggling to work their way out of poverty and need the financial support of C.A Micro Credit.