Thoughts From Our Very First Town Hall: Port Loko Journey
By: Christine Chinwuba & Cheukai Makari
In Port Loko, a rural community in northern Sierra Leone, Aminat Ventures recently executed our proof of concept for what we hope to be a groundbreaking venture philanthropy program. We engaged with nearly 50 community stakeholders, placing them at the center of their own solutions and listening to their invaluable insights.
During our conversations, we heard from resilient women entrepreneurs who shared their experiences, highlighting pressing challenges on multiple fronts. Some key findings emerged:
Impact of Micro Loans: Women entrepreneurs spoke about the negative repercussions of high-interest micro loans, which had adversely affected their livelihoods. The relatively high interest rates combined with the rigid timeline required to pay back the funds were often said to cause more harm than good as some lenders had to flee their communities and families in the shame that they wouldn’t be able to pay back the loan.
Balancing Business and Family: They discussed the complex dynamics of prioritizing business needs while managing familial responsibilities, revealing the delicate balance they must navigate. This is a problem that working women face around the world, but in the rural area of Port Loko where the business performance determines whether or not their child will be able to eat or attend school for the day, this balance is crucial.
Financial Burden: In Port Loko, women allocate the money that they receive from micro-loans/external sources towards their family needs rather than the business, putting a strain on their stream of income. A lot of the times the financial burden to meet their basic needs is so high that there is hardly enough money to actually focus on their business thus digging them deeper in poverty causing a vicious cycle of women fleeing their homes, children, and lives due to unpaid debt.
Hyperinflation eroding Profits: The rising costs of goods and services, coupled with unstable currency values, pose immense challenges to sustaining and growing their businesses. Many noted frustrations about their livelihoods being based on the volatility of a currency that was not their own determined by factors they knew nothing about, only how these daily changes in rates impact them.
Education and Income Disparities: We engaged with women from the age of 19 to 78 and discovered that a 44.2% of them had little to no formal education and were earning less than $1000 per year, underscoring the urgent need for economic empowerment.
Head of Household: Due to lack of job opportunities and livable wages, women are left with the brunt of being the sole economic source of income in their households. Though approximately 65% of the women we engaged with were married, most of them in attendance noted that the national issue of high unemployment and lack of access to quality education limit the possibility for the men to truly act as the head of household.
Amidst these struggles, one idea shone brightly: the lack of accessible seed capital that was not exploitative and takes into account the holistic wellness of their community. It became clear that addressing these issues could have a transformative impact on the community.
Aminat Ventures has chosen its first initiative to scale up. We aim to provide renewable energy community fridges, empowering market women to extend the shelf life of essential items and broaden their inventory sources. This will create diverse avenues of income, while ensuring new perishable items reach a community that has long been deprived of them. We will also create a community savings funds that governed by community bylaws outlined by them and funded by a small fraction of the proceeds from the people using the fridges. This way the community solution maximizes impact by providing a cushion for other members in the community to tend to their needs or even jumpstart their own venture.
However, we cannot achieve this vision alone. We invite you to join us in our philanthropic journey. Your support can make a tangible difference in the lives of our amazing cohort and their communities.
Together, let’s bring sustainable solutions to Sierra Leone’s rural communities. Visit www.aminatventures.com or reach out to aminatphilanthropy@gmail.com to learn more about our mission and discover how you can contribute to our philanthropic efforts.
