Ester Adedi and Victoria Addey
Ester Adedi
Hello there! My name is Ester Adedi, and I am thirty seven years old. I live in Coalter with my husband and our five children. I have a little shop in our home where I retail out ladies’ slippers, shoes and hand bags. I started this business with an amount of Ghc 300.00 that a family friend had loaned to me. Business was okay, but of course that initial capital was not enough to keep me in business for long. I needed to widen my suppliers to include the different footwear tastes of my customers.
With an amount of Ghc 500.00 that I took from the Royal Black Queens, I was able to firstly buy more items at wholesale markets in Accra; and as a result, my goods became much cheaper than they were before ( and as you know already, customers love to receive discounts from their favorite suppliers), so I made a lot more from new customers too.
Secondly, with that amount invested in the business, I was able to make some good profits with which I am now able to make some financially contributions to my family’s expenses. My children go to better schools, and I am really happy about that. I hope that my business continues to do good so that I will become more and more financially independent of my husband, who is usually under a lot of family related financial pressure. Thank you again and I hope to ‘call again’!
Victoria Addey
Greeting! I am Victoria Addey and I am 63 years old. I am a widow and have nine children. Currently, eight of these children are out of home with just one of them attending the Cape Coast University. I come from the Dokrochiwa village in Akwapim South. I am a local trader and I deal in foodstuffs like yams and beans. I started this business some eighteen years ago. At that time, I had just retired from civil service where I had worked for twenty years as a telephonist and records officer for the then CPP, Cocoa Division and in the much latter days the Cocoa Project; all these agencies were based in Suhum. After my retirement, I relocated to my village. Soon afterwards, I begun to buy and sell food items like cassava, yams, and groundnuts. I was forced to do that because the government pension allowances were just not sufficient to cater for my personal and family needs. I was still very strong and could work just as hard as before if I had to make an extra income to cover for all our family’s expenses.
All together, I have been trading for some eighteen years now. Before I took a loan of Ghc 400.00 from the RBQs, I could only retail foodstuffs. But today, with the financial assistance and support of your team, I am able to wholesale those same items to local distributors. I buy my goods from wholesale markets in Accra. But, in the next few months I intend to travel to the North to buy supplies straight from the farms. By doing so, I can buy the freshest farm produce as well as buy them at far cheaper prices.
I also happen to be a group leader and responsible for five of the RBQs loans’ beneficiaries. I was very pleased to be awarded such responsibility and glad also that you believe and trust in my abilities. I would also on behalf of my group members want to thank you for your benevolence; all your efforts are much appreciated, you have helped to make our lives much better. Thank you. We would like to use this medium to plead for the help of the local council in respect to providing a market facility for local traders in Dokrochiwa. Most of us are forced to use our homes as warehouses, stores and market places for our businesses. Also I hope that the loans facility will be an on-going project; enabling us to grow our businesses from strength to strength. Thank you so much.
